1 


BC 


IRLF 


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EXCHANGE 


JUL    2919*3 


JUDGMENT  AS  BELIEF 


BY 


Thomas  Albert  Lewis 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE  BOARD  OF  UNIVERSITY  STUDIES   OF 

THE  JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY  IN  CONFORMITY 

WITH  THE  REQUIREMENTS  FOR  THE  DEGREE 

OF   DOCTOR   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 


»>  i  *•*  *"? '*•  t*  vk 

Of    CMS 


BALTIMORE 
June,   1910 


JUDGMENT  AS  BELIEF 


BY 


Thomas  Albert  Lewis 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE  BOARD  OF  UNIVERSITY  STUDIES  OF 

THE  JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY  IN  CONFORMITY 

WITH  THE  REQUIREMENTS  FOR  THE  DEGREE 

OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


BALTIMORE 
June,   1910 


oe/s/ 

L- 


CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER.  PAGE. 

I.  INTRODUCTORY  :    The  Problem  and  Method 5-7 

II.  PAST  PSYCHOLOGICAL  THEORY   7-20 

Section    i :     Belief  as  vivacity  of  idea  8-n 

Section   ii :     Belief  as  inseparable  association   12-14 

Section  iii :     Belief  as  ultimate  assent    14-17 

Section  iv :     Belief  as  action   17-20 

III.  PRESENT  PSYCHOLOGICAL  THEORY  20-42 

Section    i :     Descriptive    20-34 

A.  Belief  with   feeling  paramount    20-24 

B.  Belief  with  cognition  indispensable 24-34 

Section   ii :     Pathological     34-37 

Section  iii :     Experimental     37-42 

IV.  CRITICISM    42-45 

V.  REALITY-FEELING  AND  PRESUMPTION  45-47 

VI.  QUASI-BELIEF  AND  PRESUMPTION 48-54 

VII.  BELIEF  AND  JUDGMENT 54-68 

Section   i :     Direct    Evidence    56-64 

A.  Objective    56-62 

B.  Subjective     62-64 

Section  ii :     Indirect  Evidence   64-68 

A.  Interpretation  of  the  Negative 64-65 

B.  Argument  from   Pragmatism    65-68 

CONCLUSION    68-69 

BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH    70 


363329 


JUDGMENT  AS  BELIEF 


CHAPTER  I. 
Introductory — The  Problem  and  Method. 

In  a  rather  uncritical  fashion,  it  may  be  said  that  present 
theories  of  judgment  fall  into  three  classes.  First,  there  are 
those  theories  that  put  judgment  safely  beyond  the  change  of 
experience,  beyond  the  power  of  growth  and  readjustment  to 
disturb;  secondly,  there  are  those  theories  that  are  emphatically 
averse  to  this  exaltation  of  judgment  upon  a  throne  where  it 
shall  forever  rule  over  experience  willy-nilly,  but  are  rather  in 
favor  of  putting  experience  itself  on  the  throne;  and,  thirdly, 
there  are  those  theories  that  strike  a  middle  ground,  that  want 
to  keep  reason  on  the  throne  so  that  experience  will  not  run  away 
with  itself  into  anarchy,  but  desire  reason  to  be  responsive  to 
evolving  life. 

The  first  sort  of  judgments  are  found  in  formal  logic.  It  can 
be  said,  with  more  or  less  truth,  that  this  logic  transcends  actual, 
growing  experience,  individual  and  social,  and  forms  a  closed 
system  of  thought  that  sustains  itself  on  a  priori  principles.  It  at- 
tempts by  the  use  of  the  syllogism  to  weave  a  fabric  of  truth  out 
of  propositions  that  are  not  real  fibers  of  existence,  drawn  from 
this  sphere  or  that,  from  the  world  of  fact  or  fiction,  or  some 
other.  This  logic,  certain  critics  say,  represents  an  endeavor  to 
think  at  large,  to  gain  knowledge  through  sheer  reasoning 
with  propositions  as  propositions,  and  not  with  propositions  as 
they  openly  assert  or  tacitly  presuppose  some  world  to  which  the 
knowledge  can  refer. 

The  second  kind  of  logical  theory,  which  is  the  antipode  of  the 
theory  just  considered,  belongs  to  the  pragmatists.  This  doc- 
trine exactly  reverses  things — that  is,  it  gives  stumbling,  striving 
experience  the  place  of  honor  and  appoints  judgment  to  serve. 
The  pragmatist  withdraws  allegiance  from  all  logic  that  claims 
to  know  more  about  guiding  human  happenings  and  events,  as 
together  or  in  succession  they  join  in  creating  a  life  of  progress 
and  well-being,  than  the  thought  that  is  born  of  the  travail  of 


those  very  events  and  happenings  which  it  guides ;  he  cuts  loose 
from  all  the  moorings  of  universal  and  necessary  thought  and 
floats  away  on  the  "flux  of  things"  with  no  fixed  point,  to  the 
right  or  to  the  left,  behind  or  before,  with  no  sun  or  stars  in 
the  sky  except  when  present  experience  is  in  danger  of  going 
upon  the  rocks,  and  then  it  has  to  be  a  particular  kind  of  sun  or 
star — one  made  to  order  for  this  very  experience,  no  universal 
sun  or  star  being  of  the  right  uniqueness.  To  the  pragmatist 
judgment  is  a  projected  plan  that  has  no  virtue  in  harmony  of 
parts,  but  only  in  the  way  it  works  out  in  practice,  the  way  it 
mends  experience. 

The  third  style  of  theory,  that  held  by  theorists  who  aim  to 
strike  a  balance  between  the  universalist  and  the  particularism 
criticize  the  former  for  pretending  to  be  universal  and  necessary 
without  being  universal  and  necessary  anywhere,  and  the  latter 
for  not  generalizing  the  facts  sufficiently  to  be  able  to  corral 
them  anywhere.  To  state  this  criticism  in  terms  of  present-day 
politics,  the  universalist  is  a  "stand-patter,"  who  believes  in  tariff 
from  its  very  innate  reasonableness,  and  the  particularist  is  a 
"free-trader,"  who  believes  in  letting  each  individual  case  settle  its 
own  affairs,  as  the  occasion  gives  wisdom.  One  group  of  theorists 
over-emphasizes  the  authority  of  abstract  thinking,  and  under- 
emphasizes  the  authority  of  concrete,  active  life,  while  the  other, 
reversing  the  emphasis,  commits  the  opposite  error ;  the  one  wor- 
ships the  certain  past,  the  other  worships  the  uncertain  future. 
The  universality  and  necessity  of  formal  logic  are  not  false 
categories  in  their  nature,  but  only  in  their  use,  i.  e.,  in  being 
lifted  out  of  experience  and  deified;  neither,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
changing  experience  (fluctuating  phenomena)  false  per  se,  but 
only  when  it  refuses  to  take  its  place  in  some  realm  of  existence. 
It  is  a  selective  union  of  the  two  contrasting  theories  that  is  the 
desideratum — experience  must  not  be  allowed  to  divorce  itself 
from  relations,  or  relations  from  experience ;  thinking  and  action 
must  join  to  satisfy  all  the  facts  of  life. 

The  problem  of  bridging  the  abyss  between  abstract  thought 
and  concrete  fact  and  event  has  furnished  the  motive  for  the 
investigation  undertaken  in  this  paper.  Belief  more  than  any- 
thing else  seems  to  give  promise  of  accomplishing  the  feat  of  sat- 
isfying conservative  intellect  and  radical  action,  and  that  was 


consequently  the  direction  the  investigation  took.  In  this  study  my 
presentation  is  largely  re-presentation ;  any  originality  it  may  have 
will  be  found  mainly  in  the  sifting  and  correlating  of  earlier 
thoughts  on  the  subject.  The  paper  is,  indeed,  a  sort  of  census 
of  those  minds  that  have  originated  the  chief  ideas  on  belief.  The 
census  form  consists  of  but  two  questions,  first:  ''What  is  belief?" 
This  was  put  to  historical  and  present  writers  on  psychology ;  then 
second,  "Is  judgment  the  same  as  belief?"  and  this  was  put  to 
writers  on  worth  theory,  epistomology,  and  logic.  The  answers 
received  to  these  questions,  and  the  criticism  and  interpretation 
of  those  answers  will,  accordingly,  be  found  to  constitute  the 
body  of  this  investigation. 

As  to  the  results  of  the  census:  The  first  question  which  was 
asked  of  Hume,  James  Mill,  John  Stuart  Mill,  Bain,  and  as 
many  modern  psychologists,  met  with  replies  which  strongly 
indicated  that  belief — whatever  other  attributes  it  might  have — 
has  these  two:  namely,  an  objective  reference  to  reality,  and  a 
subjective  reference  to  self.  The  second  question,  which  was 
asked  of  Baldwin,  Meinong,  Bradley,  Brentano,  Urban,  the  Prag- 
matist,  and  others,  received  answers  that  tended  to  show  that 
judgment  has  the  very  characteristics  found  to  be  the  character- 
istics of  belief — the  subjective  and  objective  characters.  Bald- 
win's Genetic  Logic  has  the  genesis  of  judgment  and  the  genesis 
of  belief  coinciding;  Brentano,  looking  at  judgment  from  the 
psychological  as  Baldwin  does  from  the  epistomological,  sees 
judgment  to  be  belief ;  both  these  men  and  others  hold  that  judg- 
ment has  existential  reference;  and  Urban,  through  his  worth 
theory,  and  the  pragmatist,  through  his  theory  of  logic,  vie  with 
each  other  in  giving  emphasis  to  the  subjective  control  in  life 
and  judgment.  Further  support  of  the  idea  that  judgment 
embodies  in  overt  expression  the  dual  nature  of  belief  appears  in 
a  short  criticism  made  of  bare  negation,  the  emptiness  of 
which  is  easily  explained  upon  the  theory  that  identifies  belief 
and  judgment,  anti  in  a  longer  criticism  of  pragmatism,  which 
aims  to  show  that  pragmatism  supports  the  view  of  this  paper — 
for  in  failing  to  reach  belief,  the  pragmatist  likewise  fails  to  reach 
judgment,  thus  stopping  at  what  Meinong,  Baldwin  and  Urban 
call  assumption. 


CHAPTER  II. 

PAST  PSYCHOLOGICAL  THEORY. 

Section  I:  Belief  As  Vivacity  of  Idea. 

What  is  meant  by  Hume's  theory,  that  "belief  is  a  lively  idea 
related  to  or  associated  with  a  present  impression,"  will  be  most 
quickly,  as  well  as  most  clearly  brought  out  if  we  begin  by  setting 
forth  the  author's  point  of  view.  Perhaps  the  leading  character- 
istic of  Hume's  philosophy  is  his  skepticism;  at  any  rate,  we 
may  be  certain  that  in  his  treatment  of  belief,  this  motive  leads. 
Reason  is  declared  to  be  impotent  as  soon  as  it  presumes  upon  its 
reputed  authority ;  it  is  then  no  longer  able  to  produce  conviction. 
Outside  of  demonstrative  and  intuitive  propositions,  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  certain  knowledge.  As  soon  as  we  attempt  to  gain 
truth  inductively  we  land  in  the  bog  of  "matter  of  fact,"  where 
knowledge  can  find  no  footing,  and  belief  goes  down  in  doubt.1 
Reason  is  chained  to  skepticism,  and  in  spite  of  herself,  she  must 
give  aid  to  her  rival.  The  relation  between  belief  and  reason,  as 
Hume  regarded  it,  is  well  put  in  the  following  passage :  "When 
I  reflect  on  the  natural  fallibility  of  my  judgment,  I  have  less  con- 
fidence in  my  opinions  than  when  I  only  consider  the  objects 
concerning  which  I  reason;  and  when  I  proceed  still  further 
to  turn  the  scrutiny  against  every  successive  estimate  I  make  of 
my  faculties,  all  the  rules  of  logic  require  a  continual  diminution, 
and  at  last,  a  total  extinction  of  belief  and  evidence."  ! 

This  brief  consideration  of  the  fundamental  assumption  of 
Hume's  system  of  philosophy  brings  us  without  surprise — in  fact, 
pretty  much  as  a  matter  of  course — to  the  statement  that  belief  is 
not  demonstrable,  is  not  a  state  of  mind  "grounded  in  evidence." 
The  more  thought  strives  after  judgments  that  give  conviction  of 
truth,  the  less  the  conviction  grows.  For  abstruse  and  tortuous 
thinking  serves  only  to  drain  away  assurance.  "It  is  not  in  the 
peculiar  nature  of  our  ideas  or  in  their  order  that  we  find 
belief."  The  imagination  with  all  its  resources  is  not  able  so  to 
join  ideas  that  the  mind  will  be  moved  to  assert  the  reality  they 
pretend.  Nothing  but  artificial  emptiness  can  ever  result  from 
the  vain  abstractions  of  the  dogmatist.  If  .we  have  conviction 
about  matters  of  fact,  they  are  to  be  credited  to  the  natural 

1  Hume :   A  Treatise  on  Human  Nature ;   p.  477. 
*  Ibid.;    p.  474. 


working  of  experience ;  to  habit.  The  author  is  quite  explicit  on 
this  point.  "All  reasonings  concerning  causes  and  effects,"  he 
asserts,  "are  derived  from  nothing  but  custom,  and  belief  is  more 
an  act  of  the  sensitive  than  of  the  cognitive  part  of  our  nature."  : 
And  again :  "If  belief  were  a  simple  act  of  thought,  without  any 
peculiar  manner  of  conception  or  the  addition  of  a  force  and 
vivacity,  it  must  infallibly  destroy  itself,  and  in  every  case  termi- 
nate in  a  total  suspense  of  judgment." '  The  feeling  of  conviction 
is,  accordingly,  "a  sort  of  automatic  governor,"  with  which 
nature  has  provided  the  human  mind  to  save  it  from  the  despair 
of  utter  doubt.  The  natural  flow  of  life's  happenings  breeds  in 
us  unavoidably  the  lively  concept  of  an  unquestioning  judgment. 

We  have  thus  far  found  the  pioneer  student  of  the  "nature  of 
that  act  of  mind  which  persuades  of  the  truth  of  what  we  con- 
ceive" to  be  quite  consistent  in  his  conclusions.  Belief  is  simple 
and  spontaneous  like  sensation,  and  it  is  no  more  to  be  had  by 
a  quest  into  the  land  of  abstract  thinking  than  is  sensation.  It  is 
the  "superior  force  of  vivacity  or  solidity  or  firmness  or  steadi- 
ness" an  idea  has  from  being  connected  with  the  present  impres- 
sion ;  in  fine,  belief  is  for  Hume  a  precipitate  of  custom. 

When,  however,  Hume  undertakes  to  discover  the  causes  of 
belief,  he  seems  forced  to  enlarge  on  his  earlier  conception  of  it. 
In  this  connection,  Carveth  Read  observes  that  "Hume's  next 
remark  takes  us  deeper ;  an  impression  of  the  senses  communicates 
its  vivacity  and  force  to  all  the  ideas  related  to  it.  Hence,  mem- 
ory is  distinguished  from  imagination  by  its  greater  vivacity  and 
also  by  the  fixity  and  order  of  its  ideas,  derived  from  the  order 
of  the  original  impressions.  Further,  the  vigor  and  vivacity 
of  mental  processes,  and  therefore,  of  belief,  is  favored  by  the 
attention;  by  the  associative  principles  of  resemblance  and  con- 
tiguity; and  more  especially,  by  causation  and  by  repetition  and 
custom.  Even  an  idea  of  which  we  have  forgotten  the  corres- 
pondent impression  may  itself  become  the  ground  of  belief  and 
inference ;  because  whatever  firmness  or  vivacity  it  has  it  must  be 
able  to  bestow  on  whatever  is  related  to  it.  'Of  these  impressions 
or  ideas  of  memory,  we  form  a  kind  of  system,  comprehending 
whatever  we  remember  to  have  been  present,  either  to  our  internal 

1  Hume:    A  Treatise  on  Human  Nature;    p.  475. 
1  Ibid. 


IO 


perception  or  senses ;  and  every  particular  of  that  system,  joined 
to  the  present  impressions,  we  are  pleased  to  call  reality.  But 
the  mind  stops  not  here.  For,  finding  that  with  this  system  of 
perceptions,  there  is  another  connected  by  custom,  or  if  you  will, 
by  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  it  proceeds  to  the  consideration 
of  their  ideas;  and  as  it  feels  that  it  is  in  a  manner  necessarily 
determined  to  view  these  particular  ideas,  and  that  the  custom 
or  relation  by  which  it  is  determined,  admits  not  of  the  least 
change,  it  forms  them  into  a  new  system,  which  it  likewise  digni- 
fies with  the  title  of  realities.  The  first  of  the  systems  is  the 
object  of  memory  and  the  senses;  the  second,  of  the  judgment. 
Tis  the  latter  principle  which  peoples  the  world,  and  brings  us 
acquainted  with  such  existences  as,  by  their  removal  in  time  and 
place,  lie  beyond  the  reach  of  senses  and  memory.  Hence,  al- 
though the  passions  and  excitement  of  poetry  and  oratory,  by 
increasing  the  force  and  vivacity  of  ideas,  influence  our  beliefs, 
yet,  by  reflection  and  general  rules,  the  understanding  corrects 
the  appearances  of  the  senses,'  and  determines  the  judgment 
'even  contrary  to  present  observation  and  experience.'  Thus, 
in  reviewing  the  causes  of  belief,  Hume,  starting  from  sensation 
as  its  origin,  has  effected  a  transition  to  science  as  still  more 
coercive." * 

That  Carveth  Read  is  justified  in  this  criticism  of  Hume,  is 
quite  manifest.  Hume  could  not  give  a  full  exposition  of  belief 
without  incorporating  in  it  an  element  of  cognition.  And,  more- 
over, there  is  yet  further  evidence  that  belief  functions  only  in 
cognitive  situations.  We  have  reference  to  the  way  Hume  ac- 
counts for  the  belief  in  the  physical  world.  By  a  propensity  of 
the  imagination,  he  explains,  perceptions  that  are  constant  and 
perceptions  that  are  coherent  are  made  a  sufficient  excuse  for 
setting  up  extra-mental  existence.  We  may  turn  our  backs  upon  a 
tree  or  a  house  or  the  sun,  but  that  does  not  destroy  these  objects, 
for,  turning  about,  we  find  them  still.  They  are  constant.  Or 
again,  if  our  experience  has  to  do  with  objects  that  suffer  change 
in  a  short  lapse  of  time,  we  find  that  such  objects  vary  as  we 
come  back  to  them,  as  in  the  case  of  a  fire  burning  in  the  grate; 
but  that  the  change  is  coherent.  From  the  constancy  of  the  per- 
ceptions of  the  sun,  and  the  coherence  in  the  perceptions  of  the 


1  Carveth  Read :  Metaphysics  of  Nature ;  pp.  9  f . 


II 

fire,  it  is  but  a  step  to  the  positing  of  independent  existence ;  and 
the  imagination  takes  that  step — the  unauthorized  step  which 
gains  a  "soul,  and  self,  and  substance."  3  But  this  imagination, 
this  galley  which  after  the  oars  of  constancy  and  coherence  have 
ceased  to  ply,  carries  on  its  course  without  any  new  impulse — 
what  is  it  but  reason,  making  inference  beyond  what  is  directly 
experienced ;  and  what  is  the  result  but  belief  that  is  a  conviction 
of  active  thought,  and  not  of  passive  sensation?  T.  H.  Green 
at  this  point  criticises  Hume  as  follows:  "What  then  is  the 
impression  and  what  the  associated  idea?  'As  the  propensity 
to  feign  the  continued  existence  of  sensible  objects  arises  from 
some  lively  impressions  of  the  memory,  it  bestows  a  vivacity  on 
that  fiction ;  or,  in  other  words,  makes  us  believe  a  continued  ex- 
istence of  body.'  Well  and  good,  but  this  only  answers  the  first 
part  of  our  question;  it  tells  us  what  are  the  impressions  in  the 
supposed  cause  of  belief,  but  not  what  is  the  associated  idea  to 
which  their  liveliness  is  communicated.  To  say  that  it  arises 
from  a  propensity  to  feign,  strong  in  proportion  to  the  liveliness 
of  the  supposed  impressions  of  memory,  does  not  tell  us  of  what 
impression  it  is  a  copy.  Such  a  propensity  indeed  would  be  an 
impression  of  reflection,  but  the  fiction  itself  is  neither  the  pro- 
pensity nor  a  copy  of  it.  The  only  possible  supposition  left  for 
Hume  would  be  that  it  is  a  'compound  idea ;'  but  what  combina- 
tion of  'perceptions'  can  amount  to  the  existence  of  perceptions 
when  they  are  not  perceived?"5 

In  explaining  the  cause  of  our  belief  in  independent  existence, 
Hume  plainly  resorts  to  mental  processes  that  are  more  than 
mere  sensations  or  feelings;  the  "propensity  of  the  imagination" 
is  not  a  passive  inference,  but  an  active  one.  Two  "perceptions" 
in  memory  may  resemble  each  other  so  closely  that  the  second 
"fits  with  ease  into  the  mold  of  the  first;"  or  again,  two  percep- 
tions may  rest  upon  each  other  in  a  dependence  that  makes  the 
second  seem  a  continuation  of  the  first;  but  nothing  short  of 
thinking  can  relate  the  single  perceptions,  and  by  processes  of 
discrimination,  comparison  and  associative  integration,  identify 
them  as  being  of  one  object.  When  taken  objectively,  not  as 
merely  psychological  process,  belief  is  found  really  to  have  meant 


1  Hume:  Human  Nature;  p.  484. 
T.  H.  Green :  General  Introduction  to  Hume's  Treatise ;  p.  262. 


12 


for  Hume,  not  simply  a  sentiment,  but  what  Carveth  Read  calls 
"the  subjective  acceptance  of  reality." 

Section  II:  Belief  as  an  Inseparable  Association  of  Ideas. 

Association,  which  in  Hume  modestly  suggested  itself  as  merely 
one  of  the  factors  of  belief,  proclaims  itself  in  James  Mill  the 
sole  cause  of  all  human  convictions.  Belief  is  reduced  to  mere 
mechanism,  is  ultra-rational,  and  besides,  lacking  attention,  which 
alone  gives  an  outlet  for  psychic  control,  is  barren  of  all  spon- 
taneity of  feeling,  of  emotion,  or  of  action.  This  theory  in  the 
hands  of  Mill  is  made  to  explain  with  ease  and  admirable  sim- 
plicity all  cases  of  belief  from  that  in  sensation  to  that  in  judg- 
ment. For  these  phenomena  are  each  a  combination  of  parts.  A 
sensation,  indeed,  is  somewhere  and  for  someone.  A  present 
sensation,  of  its  very  nature,  makes  the  mind  which  has  it  say,  "I 
have  it ;  it's  there ;  and  it's  one."  Within  this  complex  of  elements 
(the  ideas  of  position,  of  unity,  and  of  myself)  there  obtain  indis- 
soluble relations,  and  therefore,  ex  hypothesi,  belief.  Thus,  the 
author  remarks,  "when  I  say,  'I  have  a  sensation/  and  say,  'I 
believe  that  I  have  it,'  I  do  not  express  two  states  of  conscious- 
ness, but  one  and  the  same  state." ' 

So  much  for  simple  cases,  "where  belief  consists  of  sensation 
alone  or  ideas  alone,"  but  what  of  belief  in  the  more  complicated2 
cases,  where  "sensations,  ideas,  and  associations  are  combined?" 
How,  for  example,  is  our  belief  in  the  existence  of  objects  present 
to  the  senses,  accounted  for  by  the  irresistible  connection  of  ideas  ? 
Here,  as  we  shall  find,  the  theory  of  inseparable  association 
completely  expands  itself.  In  going  from  belief  in  the  isolated 
sensation  or  idea  to  belief  in  the  object  of  this  sensation  or  idea, 
consciousness  finds  the  way  long.  But  the  distance  is  made 
less  difficult  by  being  broken  up  into  parts.  The  first  part  of  this 
course  through  .experience  serves  to  bring  the  different  sense- 
activities  together,  and  thus  to  make  possible  that  coalescence 
which  incorporates  into  one  sensation  (usually,  that  of  sight)  the 
consequence  of  the  rest ;  and  with  the  concrete  result  that  in  sub- 
sequent time,  when  the  eye  catches  sight  of  a  "rose,"  it  is  not 
merely  a  sensation  of  color  that  is  had  in  consciousness,  but  also 

1  James  Mill:    Analysis  of  the  Human  Mind;    vol.  I,  p.  342. 
1  Ibid ;   p.  377- 


13 

an  anticipation,  by  instantaneous  inference,  of  the  feel  of  the 
rose,  of  its  distance  away,  of  its  smell  or  taste,  etc.,  all  these 
correlated  experiences  springing  up  with  the  color  experience  by 
association.  In  the  language  of  the  author,  "we  believe  we  should 
have  these  (other)  sensations.  That  is,  we  have  the  idea  of 
these  sensations  inseparably  united  one  with  the  other,  and  insep- 
arably united  with  ourselves  as  having  them."  a 

At  the  end  of  our  first  advance  toward  the  realization  of  a 
belief  in  the  "existence  of  external  objects  present  to  the  senses/' 
we  have  the  "conviction  that,  in  such  and  such  circumstances,  we 
should  have  such  and  such  sensations."  But  the  mind  does  not 
stop  here.  The  sensation  that,  under  certain  conditions,  I  believe 
I  may  have,  is  an  effect  that  owes  its  existence  to  a  still  more 
fundamental  existence  acting  as  its  cause.  And  by  association 
which  obtains  irresistibly  between  cause  and  effect,  we  are  carried 
beyond  the  sensations  that  fuse  to  make  the  rose  of  our  ideas,  to 
the  corresponding  qualities  that  cause  these  sensations,  and  that 
inhere  in  a  single  object  or  substratum  which  unites  them  as  the 
mind  did  the  several  sensations,  but  with  the  result  that  we  have 
a  real  objective  rose.  That  this  is  the  genesis  and  ess.ence  of  a 
sense  object,  and  a  sufficient  apology  for  our  ardent  belief  in  it, 
Mill  stands  ready  to  prove  with  the  best  of  illustrations. 

Belief  in  memory  or  testimony,  in  future  events,  and  in  a  propo- 
sition, Mill  bases  likewise  on  a  mechanical  linking  together  of 
ideas.2  And  it  may  be  said  both  of  these  phenomena  and  of  those 
of  the  external  sense,  that  the  conviction  they  elicit  is  explained 
by  this  theory,  not  erroneously,  but  rather  insufficiently.  Mus- 
cular resistance  and  uncontrollableness  are  of  course  the  chief 
factors  in  our  belief  in  external  reality.  But  Hume's  "lively  idea 
related  to  or  associated  with  a  present  impression"  explains  bet- 
ter our  belief  in  memory.  Mill,  in  fact,  begs  the  question,  as 
Adamson  charges,  when  he  states  that  the  idea  of  a  past  experi- 
ence and  of  myself  as  having  had  the  experience,  gives  memory 
its  certainty ;  for  that  contains  in  itself  the  very  element  which  is 
supposed  to  be  got  out  of  their  conjunction.  Of  expectation, 
Adamson  remarks  that  ideas  irresistibly  suggested  by  present 
experiences  are  not  necessarily  believed,  and  that  many  of  our 

1  Mill :   Analysis  of  the  Human  Mind ;    p.  349. 
1  Analysis  of  the  Human  Mind;  pp.  382-9. 


beliefs  do  not  arise  from  such  association.1  Again,  belief  in 
testimony  is  in  reality  belief  in  an  event  which  is  inseparably 
associated  as  consequent  to  the  testimony  as  antecedent.  J.  S. 
Mill  takes  issue  with  his  father  at  this  point,  touching  both  testi- 
mony and  proposition,  the  latter  being  for  James  Mill  but  the 
automatic  coupling  of  two  clusters  of  ideas  that  stand  for  the 
same  thing;  as  for  example,  "man  and  rational  animal."  "Every 
assertion  concerning  things,  whether  in  concrete  or  in  abstract 
language,"  runs  the  criticism,  "is  an  assertion  that  some  fact,  or 
group  of  facts,  has  been,  is,  or  may  be  expected  to  be,  found 
wherever  a  certain  other  fact,  or  group  of  facts,  is  found."  ! 

In  conclusion,  it  suffices  to  repeat  that  the  "association  theory" 
is  too  narrow  for  the  facts ;  that  belief  in  physical  objects  would 
scarcely  come  if  there  were  only  the  intimate  conjunction  of 
ideas  "in  our  heads,"  and  no  stubborn,  involuntary,  obstructing 
nature  to  bring  it;  that  belief  in  past  or  future  events  scarcely 
derives  its  feeling-force  from  such  a  mechanical  operation;  and 
that  to  consider  belief  in  an  assertion  as  belief  that  two  names  are 
names  of  the  same  thing,  is,  as  J.  S.  Mill  protests,  to  give  an 
inadequate  explanation  of  the  import  of  any  assertion  except  those 
that  are  classed  as  merely  verbal.8  Though  belief  is,  as  we  are 
endeavoring  to  establish,  always  cognitive,  it  is  not  to  be  con- 
sidered as  only  cognitive;  association  is  barren  unless  rooted  in 
apperception  or  a  causal  activity  on  the  part  of  the  psychological 
subject. 

Section  III:     Belief  as  Ultimate  Assent. 

What  is  John  Stuart  Mill's  conception  of  the  nature  and  cause 
of  belief,  is  revealed  in  the  following  short  bit  of  criticism  which 
is  substantially  his:  "We  do  not  believe  whatever  comes  into 
our  heads." '  The  associationalists  had  laid  down  such  principles 
as  the  following:  "All  cases  of  belief  are  simply  cases  of  indis- 
soluble association.  There  is  no  generic  difference,  but  only  a 
difference  in  the  strength  of  the  association,  between  a  case  of 
belief  and  a  case  of  mere  imagination.  To  believe  a  succession 


1  Encyclopedia  Britannica;    Qth  edition;    article  on  "Belief." 
*  J.  S.  Mill;  Critical  notes  to  James  Mill's  Analysis;  vol.  i,  p.  417. 
"  Ibid.;  vol.  I,  p.  417. 
4  Ibid.;  p.  407- 


or  co-existence  between  two  facts  is  only  to  have  the  ideas  of  the 
two  facts  so  strongly  and  closely  associated,  that  we  cannot  help 
having  the  one  idea  when  we  have  the  other.1  And  it  was  these 
claims  of  the  ''association  psychology"  which  John  Stuart  Mill 
had  to  face  when  he  came  to  consider  the  subject  of  belief,  and 
to  them  it  was  that  he  opposed  the  pointed  objection  that  we  do 
not  attach  reality-significance  to  whatever  ideas  tend  to  stick 
together  in  our  heads.  "Assuredly,  an  association,  however  close, 
between  two  ideas,  is  not  a  sufficient  ground  of  belief;  is  not 
evidence  that  the  corresponding  facts  are  united  in  external  na- 
ture. The  theory  seems  to  annihilate  all  distinction  between  the 
belief  of  the  wise,  ...  and  the  belief  of  fools."  2 

In  sense-experience  "inseparable  associations  do  not  always 
generate  belief,  nor  does  belief  always  require  as  one  of  its 
conditions,  an  inseparable  association;  we  can  believe  that  to  be 
true  which  we  are  capable  of  conceiving  or  representing  to  our- 
selves as  false ;  and  false,  what  we  are  capable  of  representing  to 
ourselves  as  true." '  To  explain  and  at  the  same  time  to  enforce 
this  argument,  the  writer  calls  attention  to  the  common  observa- 
tion, that  when  one  railway  train  in  motion  is  passing  another  at 
rest,  we  are  able,  by  withholding  our  vision  from  any  third  object, 
to  imagine  the  motion  in  either  train.  That  of  two  contradictory 
associations,  we  may  believe  either,  is  also  attested,  Mill  thinks, 
by  the  fact  that  astronomers  and  educated  persons,  though  con- 
vinced that  the  earth  moves  about  the  sun,  are  able  to  see  "sunset 
either  as  the  earth  tilting  above  ths  sun,  or  the  sun  dipping  below 
the  earth."  Again,  men  who  have  studied  Berkeley  do  not 
believe  they  see  the  magnitude  of  an  object.4 

If  association  fails  to  prove  its  claim  as  being  the  source  of  our 
sense  assurance,  it  is  next  a  question  of  how  it  vindicates  itself  in 
memory  and  in  judgment.  That  consciousness  distinguishes  be- 
tween ideas  of  memory  and  the  ideas  of  imagination,  James  Mill 
thinks  to  be  explicable  on  two  grounds.  In  the  first  place,  he 
says  it  may  be  justly  supposed  that  the  distinction  which  is 
originally  made  between  the  sensation  and  the  idea  would  carry 


1  Critical  Notes  to  James  Mill's  Analysis ;  vol.  I,  p.  402. 

1  Ibid;  p.  407. 

1  Ibid;  p.  418. 

4  Ibid.;  pp.  407-11. 


i6 


on  into  memory ;  and  in  the  second  place,  the  idea  of  self,  which  in 
all  memory  forms  part  of  the  complex  idea,  sets  in  contrast  the 
memory  of  sensation  and  the  memory  of  a  mere  idea  by  entering 
into  the  former  as  a  "sentient  self ;"  and  into  the  latter  as  a  "con- 
ceptive  self ;"  and  "myself  percipient  and  myself  imagining  or  con- 
ceiving, are  two  very  different  states  of  consciousness."  *  J.  S.  Mill 
takes  exception  to  this,  and  protests  that  he  can  form,  by  force  of 
creative  thought,  as  vivid  an  idea  of  himself  on  the  field  of  Shrews- 
bury, listening  to  Falstaff  in  his  characteristic  soliloquy  over  the 
body  of  Hotspur,  as  he  can  of  himself  in  the  presence  of  General 
LaFayette,  whom  he  once  met.  And  as  to  memory  and  imagina- 
tion being  distinguished,  so  to  speak,  before  they  are  born,  L  e., 
in  their  prototypal  sensations  and  ideas,  such  a  procedure  but 
passes  the  difficulty  to  the  other  hand;  there  is  no  solution  to  be 
found  in  the  distinction  between  the  original  sensation  and  the 
idea  (mere  fiction  of  the  mind)  unless  it  be  that  the  distinction 
between  memory  and  imagination  is  also  primordial.*  But  such 
an  explanation  reduces  association  to  a  work  of  supererogation. 

In  the  case  of  the  judgment  of  belief  in  the  validity  of 
evidence,  the  younger  Mill  comes  into  close  quarters  with  the 
elder  by  conveying  his  criticism  of  association  through  the  very 
example  which  his  father  used  to  corroborate  association;  the 
example,  namely,  of  the  sailors  shipwrecked  on  a  remote  island, 
trying  to  decide  whether  the  footstep  in  the  sand  were  that  of  a 
man  or  a  monkey.  Their  decision  would  be  made,  said  James 
Mill,  only  when  the  evidence  was  strong  enough  one  way  or  the 
other  to  resist  all  contradictory  evidence,  and  to  clinch  its  complex 
of  ideas  in  an  indissoluble  union.  But  this  irresistible  coalescence 
of  ideas  is  not  absolutely  essential  for  a  judgment,  says  J.  S. 
Mill  in  reply,  because,  even  after  gaining  conclusive  evidence  that 
the  footprint  was  that  of  a  monkey,  it  would  be  possible  for  the 
sailors  to  associate  it  with  a  man  as  having  made  it.*  Accordingly, 
the  question  still  remains,  What  is  belief  ?  "What  is  the  difference 
to  our  minds  between  thinking  of  reality,  and  representing  to 
ourselves  an  imaginary  picture?"  And  this  question  John  Stuart 
Mill  does  not  attempt  to  answer,  if  to  answer  means  to  explain 

1  Critical  Notes  to  James  Mill's  Analysis;    p.  420. 
1  Ibid.;    pp.  422  f. 
*  Ibid.;  p.  434- 


17 

in  terms  of  something  else.  He  simply  says:  UI  confess  that  I 
can  perceive  no  escape  from  the  opinion  that  the  distinction  is 
ultimate  and  primordial."  ] 

Of  John  Stuart  Mill  we  may  conclude,  as  we  began,  by  saying 
that  belief  (at  least,  of  the  educated)  is  not  "baited"  by  every 
accidental  union  of  ideas  in  the  mind,  however  close  that  union 
may  be.  Not  that  we  are  never  influenced  in  making  up  our  con- 
victions and  giving  our  assent,  by  the  mechanical  linkings  of  our 
thought,  but  that  the  pow.er  of  these  associations  is  not  absolute ; 
belief  is  larger  than  association.  We  pin  our  faith,  not  to  insep- 
arable association,  he  would  say,  for  it  is  not  inseparable ;  but  to 
the  "underlying  uniformity  of  nature ;" 2  and  to  it  we  risk  our 
all,  believing  that  consequent  will  invariably  follow  antecedent. 

Section  IV :  Belie  j  as  Action. 

Whether  it  is  that  new  facts  are  always  coming  above  the 
horizon  of  human  experience,  and  indeed,  of  reality,  and  con- 
founding old  theories ;  or  simply  that  the  facts  existing  are  of  too 
vast  a  number  (even  the  representative  ones)  to  be  brought  within 
the  ken  of  a  single  life,  is  a  question  that  is  again  in  mind  as 
we  come  to  the  study  of  Alexander  Bain.  Phenomena  that  ought 
to  be  classed  under  belief  were  running  wild  beyond  the  confines 
of  "sentiment  or  f.eeling,"  or  of  "inseparable  association,"  or  even 
of  "ultimate  assent."  It  was  Bain's  ambition  to  project  a  theory 
that  would  be  thoroughly  comprehensive.  He  accordingly  de- 
clared that  at  bottom,  belief  is  action;  "action  is  the  basis  and 
ultimate  criterion  of  reality." ' 

To  say  with  James  Mill  that  conviction  is  an  association  of 
ideas  is  to  reduce  belief,  Bain  argued,  to  a  mental  state  that  is 
ultra- rational  and  static ;  it  is  to  forget  that  belief  is  a  motor  phe- 
nomenon, and  that  it  expresses  itself  in  attitude  or  movement;  it 
is  to  make  the  mistake  of  thinking  to  find  a  true  resultant  when 
one  component,  and  that  the  main  one,  is  left  out.  The  correct 
view  of  the  question  is  to  be  had  from  the  side,  not  of  antecedent, 
but  of  consequent.  We  have  the  clue  to  the  real  character  of 
belief  in  the  connection  between  faith  and  works.  "The  practical 

1  Critical  Notes  to  James  Mill's  Analysis,  p.  412. 

2  Ibid. ;  p.  436. 

8  Bain :  The  Emotions  and  the  Will ;  4th  edition,  p.  506. 


i8 


test  applied  to  a  man's  belief  in  a  certain  matter  is  his  acting  upon 
it."  :  This  conception  of  the  nature  and  origin  of  human  assur- 
ance, explained  as  it  is  by  the  working  of  our  own  experience, 
had  likewise  no  need  for  an  a  priori  principle,  whether  that  prin- 
ciple be  a  lively  idea  or  an  ultimate  assent. 

Bain's  position  means  more  than  that  a  conviction  tends  to — 
or  does — manifest  itself  in  an  outward  action,  if  the  exciting  sit- 
uation permits;  it  is  no  such  tempered  view  as  that;  it  means 
that  there  is  no  conviction  but  has  its  essence  in  an  accompanying 
thought  of  possible  or  immediate  action,  however  remote  or  in- 
direct the  latter  may  be.  "If  I  am  thirsty,  I  may  say  that  I 
believe  myself  to  be  thirsty,  because  I  act  accordingly;  I  cannot 
assure  myself  or  any  other  person  that  I  am  not  under  a  dream, 
an  imagination,  or  a  hallucination,  in  any  other  way  than  by  a 
course  of  voluntary  exertion  corresponding  to  the  supposed  sen- 
sation."3 The  author's  determination  to  prove  action  indispen- 
sable to  belief  appears  still  more  boldly  in  a  second  case.  He  be- 
lieves that  he  yesterday  ran  up  against  a  wall  to  keep  out  of  the 
way  of  a  carriage.  There  is  no  disposition  to  do  anything  in 
consequence  of  this  memory,  yet,  it  is  a  conviction.  And  this 
because,  says  Bain,  "I  feel  that  if  there  were  any  likelihood  of 
being  jammed  up  in  that  spot  again,  I  should  not  go  that  way 
if  I  could  help  it.'"  It  is  a  readiness  to  act  that  makes  belief 
"something  more  than  fancy."  Even  the  conviction  that  obtains 
in  the  highest  theoretical  knowledge  is  amenable  to  the  action- 
theory.  The  reason  that  such  knowledge  is  seldom  reduced  to 
action  is  "not  want  of  faith,  but  want  of  opportunity."  4 

Such  stress  as  we  have  found  Bain  laying  upon  the  action 
element  in  belief  is  almost  enough  to  eclipse  from  view  any  other 
element  (or  elements)  it  may  have;  assurance  attaches  to  volun- 
tary activity;  it  attaches  also  to  spontaneous  activity.  "Our 
natural  state  of  mind;  our  primitive  start,  is  tantamount  to  full 
confidence;"  "in  its  essential  character,  belief  is  a  phase  of 
our  active  nature." '  But  we  are  luckily  saved  from  such  a  mis- 


1  Bain :  Emotions  and  the  Will ;  4th  edition,  p.  508. 

'  Ibid. ;   p.  508. 

'  Ibid. 

4  Ibid.;  p.  507. 

*  Notes  to  Mill's  Analysis;  pp.  394  ff. 


19 

understanding  of  the  author  by  coming  upon  statements  that 
definitely  disclaim  place  for  .experience  in  a  primordial  impulse ; 
mere  persistence  in  action  that  is  bringing  pleasure  or  alleviating 
pain,  has  no  accompanying  state  of  confidence.  Activity  that  is 
itself  its  own  end,  gives  no  basis  for  the  expectation  of  attaining 
something  remote,  by  a  certain  means ;  and  for  Bain  the  only  kind 
of  confidence  possible  is  confidence  in  means  to  an  end.1  It  is  "a 
fiction  or  a  figure  to  speak  of  belief  in  a  present  reality."  2  The 
author  accordingly  remarks  that  "while,  therefore,  action  is  the 
basis  and  ultimate  criterion  of  belief,  there  enters  into  it  as  a 
necessary  element  some  cognizance  of  the  order  of  nature,  of  the 
course  of  the  world.8 

By  the  cognitive  constituents  necessarily  present  in  all  belief 
is  not  meant,  however,  a  reasoning  state  of  mind;  i.  e.,  not  this 
alone.  We  do  not  wait  for  the  reflections  of  experience  and  the 
consequent  inseparable  association  before  we  launch  our  trust; 
"belief  follows  the  absence  of  contradiction."  "The  natural  mind 
has  a  predetermined  bias  to  action,"  but  let  thought  open  ever 
so  small  an  outlet,  action  breaks  forth  into  belief !  Belief  at  its 
maximum,  too,  for  larger  experience  but  sets  up  checks  and 
indicates  the  direction  of  safe  travel.  Thus,  although  convictions 
function  only  where  there  is  some  knowledge,  the  amount  re- 
quired at  the  beginning  is  remarkably  meager — just  a  mere  obser- 
vation of  some  sequence  in  nature,  such  as  seen,  for  example,  by  a 
young  child  which,  given  sweetmeats  at  one  time,  expects  the 
same  again  upon  the  second  appearance  of  the  donor.  This  nice 
balance  for  action,  for  motor  response,  seen  in  its  simplicity  in 
animals,  children  and  savages,  Bain  considers  the  leading  fact  in 
belief;  a  fact  which  he  terms  "Primitive  Credulity,"  or  "an  im- 
potence of  thought;"  the  latter,  because,  "without  some  positive 
interference  from  without,  there  is  no  other  way  of  doing  or 
thinking."  4 

There  is  no  need  for  words  concerning  the  importance  of  the 
"action  theory."  Its  value  is  attested  by  the  place  it  occupies, 
more  or  less  modified,  in  the  theories  of  today.  This  conception 


1  Emotions  and  Will;  pp.  505  f. 

2  Notes  to  Mill's  Analysis;  p.  342. 

3  Emotions  and  Will;  p.  506. 

4  Ibid.;   p.   537. 


20 


of  belief  gives  a  just  and  needed  emphasis  to  the  practical  aspect 
of  human  experience.  It  suggests  the  ''passional  nature"  of 
James,  and  the  "motor  attitude  or  accommodation"  of  Baldwin. 
Moreover,  the  cognitive  element  which  attaches  to  belief  justifies 
the  statement  that  for  Bain  belief  was  of  reality.  To  have  belief 
in  water  as  being  of  a  certain  compound  means,  he  says,  that  I 
believe  I  should,  if  I  analyzed  water,  find  those  elements. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Present  Psychological  Theory. 

In  this  division,  we  shall  pursue  the  same  method  as  in  the 
preceding  one ;  the  different  writers  to  be  treated  will  be  presented 
both  constructively  and  critically.  But  whereas  in  the  foregoing 
chapter,  we  have  been  considering  theory  as  attaching  to  a  partic- 
ular individual,  we  shall  now  consider  the  various  theories  of 
belief  as  represented  by  a  number  of  individuals.  This  has  its 
advantages,  and  can  really  be  done  in  a  general  way ;  for  present 
theories  of  belief  can  scarcely  resist  classification  under  feeling, 
intellection,  or  will.  A  second  variation  on  the  procedure  of  the 
first  division  will  be  the  supplementing  of  the  more  general  psy- 
chological treatment  of  belief  with  brief  reports  of  the  limited 
data  which  have  been  gathered  in  pathological  and  experimental 
investigations. 

Section  I:    Descriptive. 
(A)  Belief  with  Feeling  Paramount. 

Walter  Bagehot  and  Professor  William  James  may  be  looked 
upon  as  continuing  in  a  modified  and  developed  form  the  theory 
of  Hume,  with  the  important  difference,  however,  that  they  as- 
sign to  the  intellect  and  the  active  nature  a  share  in  the  deter- 
mination of  belief,  while  giving  the  leading  role  to  feeling. 

Belief  is  recognized  by  Bagehot  as  having  an  intellectual  as 
well  as  an  emotional  element ;  *  but  not  having  such  a  preponderat- 
ing intellectual  element  as  the  "quiet,  careful  people  who  have 
written  our  treatises"  give  it.  And  it  is  to  bring  forward  the 
emotional  side  of  the  subject  that  the  writer  expresses  himself 
so  emphatically  in  defining  belief  as  "emotional  conviction." 

1  Bagehot:    The  Emotion  of  Conviction;    Literary  Studies. 


21 

"Probably,"  he  forecasts,  "when  the  subject  is  thoroughly  exam- 
ined, 'conviction'  will  be  proved  to  be  one  of  the  intensest  of 
human  emotions."  Indeed,  some  such  view  of  assurance  seems 
necessary  to  explain  the  tenacity  or  burning  certainty  of  those 
convictions  that  assert  themselves  after  the  intellectual  incentive 
has  gone,  or  that  transcend  that  incentive.  Only  thus  could  the 
author  himself  account  for  the  fact  that  he  still  remained  suscepti- 
ble to  the  conviction  that  he  should  be  "member  for  Bridge- 
water,"  when  years  had  passed  since  his  defeat.  And  only  thus 
can  we  account  for  such  conduct  as  that  of  Calif  Omar,  who 
burnt  the  Alexandrian  library  upon  the  flimsy  pretext  that,  "All 
books  which  contained  what  is  not  in  the  Koran  are  dangerous; 
all  those  which  contain  what  is  in  the  Koran  are  useless." 

The  writer  thinks  his  position,  that  belief  is  not  a  "purely  in- 
tellectual matter,"  further  established  by  our  experience  in 
dreams  "where  we  are  always  believing,  but  scarcely  ever  argu- 
ing;" and  by  the  abnormal  belief  that  the  insane  suffer  as  fixed 
illusions,  a  belief  that  has  a  degree  of  intensity  never  realized  by 
the  sane.  But  the  argument  he  makes  the  most  of  in  this  connec- 
tion is  that  by  which  he  endeavors  to  show  that  certain  ideas 
possess  of  themselves  the  power  to  generate  assurance  without 
the  exercise  of  the  intellectual  process ;  the  ideas,  namely,  that  are 
clear,  or  intense,  or  constant,  or  interesting.  These  ideas  are 
designated  as  tendencies  to  irrational  conviction  and  adhesive 
states  of  consciousness. 

These  four  groups  of  ideas,  moreover,  give  Bagehot  a  basis 
of  attack  on  Bain's  sweeping  assertion  that  belief  is  identical  with 
our  "activity  or  active  disposition,"  and  support  his  assumption 
that  children  are  born  believing,  and  become  skeptical  only  with 
the  checks  and  disappointments  of  hard,  non-acquiescing  exper- 
ience. Doubt  is  defined  as  "hesitation  in  these  ideas,  produced  by 
collision."  This  collision,  however,  never  puts  us  fully  on  our 
guard  against  these  insidious  ideas,  and  thus,  we  retain  even  in 
our  adult,  hesitating  stage,  "vestiges  of  our  primitive,  all-believing 
state/' 

Miss  Ettie  Stettheimer,  in  a  critical  study  entitled  "The  Will 
to  Believe  as  a  Basis  for  a  Defense  of  Religious  Faith,"  *  quoting 

1  Archives  of  Philosophy;  edited  by  Frederick  J.  E.  Woodbridge; 
No.  2,  December,  1907;  p.  64. 


22 


from  Hans  Cornelius,  says :  "There  are  two  possible  methods  for 
a  research  into  the  conditions  of  belief.  One  may  start  with  a 
fixed  definition  of  the  real,  and  then  deduce  from  it  what  marks 
our  ideas  must  show  in  order  to  be  characterized  as  real;  or, 
one  may  proceed  inductively,  and  search  for  the  common  qualities 
of  those  ideas  which  are  generally  believed,  and  thus  determine 
the  nature  of  reality."  She  then  goes  on  to  say  that  James  at- 
tempts to  carry  through  the  second  of  these  methods.  And  her 
observation  is  as  serviceable  as  it  is  true.  For  to  gain  any  com- 
prehension of  Professor  James'  treatment  of  belief  without  first 
placing  one's  self  on  the  side  of  the  Ego  (the  common-sense  Ego), 
so  one  can  see  what  ideas  it  chooses  as  real,  would  be  a  thing 
as  impossible  as  undertaking  to  make  the  cart  pull  the  horse; 
because  the  force  that  decides  reality  is  not  external,  but  internal. 
But  even  with  this  suggestion  to  guide  the  reader  through  the 
chapter  on  the  " Perception  of  Reality,"  *  he  yet  meets  with  diffi- 
culties. One  such  perplexity  is  as  to  the  way  the  experience  of 
doubt  could  ever  arise  to  vex  the  Ego,  if  the  Ego  decided  the 
truth  of  things  wholly  by  the  postulate  of  its  own  inner  nature. 
It  is  quite  natural  for  the  new-born  mind  to  turn  the  hallucina- 
tory candle  into  a  reality,  since  there  is  no  other  object  present 
in  consciousness  to  protest.  But  it  is  quite  different  when  the 
world  has  grown  hard  and  stern,  and  squarely  contradicts  the 
child  in  his  natural  conceit ;  the  tables  are  then  turned.  And  it  is 
in  such  and  only  such  a  situation  that  the  congenital  tendency  to 
accept  without  question  anything  and  everything,  becomes  tem- 
pered with  curbing  doubts.  Having  found  the  danger  of  a  pas- 
sive acquiescence  in  the  lead  of  the  emotions  or  active  nature, 
the  child  no  longer  trusts  everything ;  about  some  things  he  takes 
a  second  thought.  Without  recognizing  stubborn  controlling  facts 
over  against  us,  it  is  a  mystery  why  the  boy  with  his  winged 
horse  should  ever  meet  with  contradicting  conditions.  Indeed, 
Professor  James,  as  Miss  Stettheimer  asserts,  does  seem  almost 
forced  to  declare  for  space-reality,  a  world  extra  mentem,  simply 
to  have  something  for  belief  to  go  out  upon.  She  refers  to  the 
passage  in  the  Principles  of  Psychology  where  he  speaks  of  the 
candle  existing  "over  there in  space,  related  to  our  reals." ' 


1  James:    Principles  of  Psychology;  vol  ii,  p.  318. 

2  Archives   of    Philosophy ;     edited   by    Frederick   J.    E.    Woodbridge ; 
No.  2,  December,  1907;   p.  69. 


23 

And  following  this  out  logically,  one  could  say  of  the  illusory 
candle  that  it  became  unreal  for  the  experience  having  it,  only 
when  it  was  found  not  to  exist  in  real  space  alongside  of  other 
reals. 

If,  however,  there  are  times  when  the  author's  presentation  of 
belief  as  the  "mental  state,  or  function  of  reality."  *  tries  com- 
prehension even  beyond  its  capacity,  there  are  other  times,  many 
of  them,  when  the  understanding  moves  along  with  facility.  The 
consideration  of  belief  as  an  emotion  furnishes  an  example  of 
the  latter.  In  this,  James  agrees  with  Bagehot,  and  says  that 
''in  its  inner  nature,  belief,  or  the  sense  of  reality,  is  a  sort  of 
feeling  allied  to  the  emotions  more  than  to  anything  else."  a  But 
it  is  concerning  the  circumstances  "in  which  we  think  things  real," 
that  Professor  James  carries  on  most  of  his  investigation;  for 
about  all  that  can  be  said  of  belief  as  the  "sense  of  reality,"  is  that 
it  is  a  state  of  consciousness  sui  generis,  a  feeling  that  feels  Hke 
itself.  How  important  a  part  is  accorded  the  emotions  in  the 
matter  of  conviction  may  be  seen  from  two  or  three  quotations. 
"Every  exciting  thought  in  the  natural  man  carries  credence  with 
it."  !  "The  whole  history  of  witchcraft  and  medicine  is  a  com- 
mentary on  the  facility  with  which  anything  which  chances  to  be 
conceived  is  believed  the  moment  the  belief  chimes  in  with  the 
emotional  mood."  "Belief  consists  in  the  emotional  reaction  of 
the  entire  man  upon  an  object."  Mere  appearance,  bare  appeal 
to  the  intellect,  is  not  enough  to  "sting"  us  with  assurance.  In 
order  to  move  us  to  belief,  an  object  must  be  interesting  and  im- 
portant ;  it  must  come  to  the  mind,  as  Hume  said,  as  a  lively  and 
active  idea.  This  is  attested  by  our  "everlasting  partiality  to  the 
sense-world,  or  the  world  of  our  practical  life." '  How,  at  their 
height,  emotions  lead  us  to  believe  the  first  thing  that  comes  to 
mind,  is  instanced  by  the  unreasoned  conviction  of  the  mob. 

In  the  first  paragraph  of  this  brief  review  of  James'  theory  of 
belief,  it  was  said  that  the  only  way  to  compass  the  author's 
meaning  is  by  the  way  of  the  Ego.  Let  us  then  adopt  that  course. 

1  James:    Principles  of  Psychology;    vol.  ii,  p.  283. 

2  Ibid. 

8  Ibid. ;    pp.  286  ff. 
4  Ibid.;  p.  294  f. 


We  are  immediately  met  with  the  assertion  that  the  'Jons  et  origo 
of  all  reality  is  the  Self."  While  Stout  and  Baldwin  posit  two 
controls,  inner  activity  and  outer  limitation,  James  would  place 
the  whole  matter  in  the  hands  of  one  control — the  Self.  He 
might  be  considered  as  saying  in  Shakesperian  style,  "It  is  not 
in  our  objects  but  in  ourselves  that  we  are  believers."  "Certain 
postulates  are  given  in  our  nature;  and  whatever  satisfies  those 
postulates  is  treated  as  if  real." '  This  prerogative  of  the  Ego 
reaches  its  climax  at  the  end  of  the  chapter  on  "Perception  of 
Reality,"  and  belief  and  will  are  said  to  be  exactly  the  same  states 
of  mind.  "Will  and  Belief,  in  short,  meaning  a  certain  relation 
between  objects  and  the  Self,  are  two  names  for  one  and  the 
same  psychological  phenomenon."  *  The  only  difference  between 
them  is  physiological;  which  seems  to  mean  that  in  both  these 
phenomena  there  is  a  "consent"  to  the  existence  of  the  object,  a 
turning  to  it  in  an  interested,  active,  emotional  way,  but  that  in 
Will  there  is  added  a  new  physiological  element,  that  of  effort. 

Professor  James  summarizes  his  whole  position  in  one  short 
sentence,  as  folllows:  "The  most  compendious  possible  formula, 
perhaps,  would  be  that  our  belief  and  attention  are  the  same 
fact."  a  He  offers  this  definition  with  the  hope  of  incorporating 
into  a  single  view  all  the  earlier  views  that  persist  each  by  virtue 
of  a  certain  truth,  but  a  partial  truth;  the  view  of  James  Mill, 
of  Bain,  and  of  Sully.  "For  the  moment,  what  we  attend  to  is 
reality;  attention  is  a  motor  reaction,  and  we  are  so  made  that 
sensations  force  attention  from  us." 

(B)  Belief  with  Cognition  as  an  Indispensable  Element. 

As  representative  of  those  who  consider  that  belief  can  exist 
only  on  some  kind  of  cognitive  basis,  we  shall  examine  the  views 
of  Sully,  Stout,  and  Baldwin.  These  writers,  coming  at  the 
problem  from  two  different  directions,  bringing  evidence  from 
both  the  analytic  and  the  genetic  sources,  and  finding  in  it  all  a 
unit-signification,  are  able  to  present  argument  of  double  weight 
And  for  them,  belief  has  emphatically  a  reference  to  an  extra- 
mental  reality,  to  a  reality  beyond  the  mere  ideas  that  are  in 

1  Principles  of  Psychology;    vol.  II,  p.  317. 
1  Ibid.;   p.  321. 
*  Ibid. ;  p.  322. 


25 

consciousness ;  belief  for  them  has  its  roots,  at  least  its  main 
roots,  in  the  representativeness  of  knowledge.  They  do  not  say, 
however,  that  belief  is  knowledge  and  nothing  else;  that  it  has 
no  intrinsic  nature  of  its  own,  but  is  merely  a  shadow  or  reflec- 
tion ;  they  contend  only  that  belief  and  cognition  operate  always 
in  conjunction.  This  view  does  not  underrate  conviction  in  its 
inner  active  nature;  its  impulse,  its  propelling  spontaneity,  its 
character  as  the  focal  expression  of  all  that  is  creative  in  con- 
scious life;  it  simply  gives  ground  upon  which  conviction  can 
support  itself.  If  belief  spun  its  object  out  of  its  own  nature, 
then  there  would  be  neither  object  nor  belief,  for  all  would  be 
an  objectless  immediacy. 

Sully's  point  of  view  toward  belief  is  best  set  forth  in  his 
work,  "Sensation  and  Intuition,"  in  the  chapter,  "Belief:  Its 
Variations  and  Its  Conditions."  In  this  chapter  he  takes  up  the 
subject  in  an  acute  and  exhaustive  manner,  working  out,  perhaps, 
the  most  complete  psychological  research  yet  made  in  this  field. 
His  primary  assumption  is  that  "every  idea  involves  a  mental 
impulse  to  realize  the  corresponding  sensation,"  and  that  this 
psychic  fact  is  the  last  "inaccessible  stage"  in  the  history  of 
belief.1  By  notable  skill  in  choosing  pertinent  illustrations,  he  is 
able  to  marshal  an  array  of  evidence  sufficient  to  turn  his  assump- 
tion into  a  very  credible  theory.  The  experience  of  certainty  has 
thus,  even  in  its  germ  form,  an  objective  mark  or  condition.  As- 
surance when  in  its  embryo  state  gives  promise  of  that  objective 
development  expressed  by  the  writer  in  these  words :  "To  believe 
means  to  believe  in  something;  and  in  order  to  do  this,  a  definite 
idea  of  the  thing  believed  in  is  necessary."  *  Or,  again,  by  saying 
that  "the  reference  of  thought  beyond  itself  to  a  real  object  is  a 
part,  and  a  very  important  part,  of  what  is  meant  by  belief." ' 

That  the  exercise  of  cognition  is  a  prerequisite  condition  of  any 
and  every  experience  of  conviction,  becomes  more  and  more  mani- 
fest as  belief,  rising  out  of  mere  objective  tendency,  i.  e.,  unwitting 
acceptance,  develops  from  simple  expectation  and  reflective  antici- 
pation to  logical  conviction.  As  experience  unfolds  in  growth,  it 
defines,  differentiates  and  magnifies  itself ;  features  that  were  at 

1  Sully :    Sensation  and  Intuition ;   p.  81. 
1  Sensation    and   Intuition;    p.   8l. 
*  Human  Mind,  p.  87. 


26 


first  vague  and  indistinct  become  marked  and  positive.  If  we 
trace  briefly  the  genetic  investigation  Sully  makes  of  belief  in  the 
chapter  referred  to,  we  shall  meet  results  that  show  the  relation 
between  knowing  and  believing  to  be  very  intimate. 

W.e  remember  an  earlier  statement  of  the  author's  assumption 
with  respect  to  the  origin  of  human  certainty  and  confidence: 
"Every  idea  involves  a  mental  impulse  to  realize  the  corresponding 
sensation."  But  it  may  be  well  to  emphasize  another:  "Belief 
arises,"  we  read,  "from  the  inherent  tendency  of  the  idea  to 
approximate  in  character  and  intensity  to  the  sensation  of  which 
it  is  the  offspring." ]  "In  the  instinctive  transitions  of  mind 
from  a  recurring  idea  to  the  actual  sensation  typified  by  it,  there 
seem  to  present  themselves  the  first  awkward,  but  necessary,  trials 
of  human  faith." '  A  simple  and  unique  mental  force  is  here 
posited,  but  it  is  attached  to  the  idea  as  a  sort  of  craving  for  the 
"real"  which  the  idea  knows  about,  but  confesses  not  to  have. 
And  that  this  is  not  a  fancy  but  a  fact  is  strikingly  attested,  as 
Sully  points  out,  by  the  conduct  of  higher  animals,  of  children,  of 
uncultured  men  and  of  savage  races.  The  young  mind  easily 
yields  to  illusion ;  it  is  constantly  taking  vivid  ideas  for  impres- 
sions. And  the  savage  cannot  resist  attributing  personal  life  to 
stumps  and  rocks  and  logs  of  human  form.  Conditions  of  mind 
that  in  the  mature  life  can  be  brought  about  only  by  artificial 
means,  by  some  drug,  such  as  an  opiate,  occur  in  early  life  quite 
naturally,  and  for  the  reason  that  sensation  and  idea  are  not  far 
from  each  other  in  intensity.  At  this  immature  stage,  we  are 
told,  consciousness  has  not  yet  really  objectified  its  experiences , 
not  divided  space  and  time  into  segments  or  points  of  reference ; 
not  even  made  the  grand  divisions  of  known  and  unknown ;  past 
and  present ;  actual  and  possible. 

To  this  first  level  of  belief,  Bain  objected,  and  criticised  Sully 
for  not  taking  account  of  the  order  and  sequence  in  nature — facts 
which  the  former  thinks  essentials,  and  correlates  of  all  assur- 
ance. It  is  true  that  to  think  of  an  experience  having  none  of 
those  large  orienting  categories,  is  to  think  of  an  experience  set 
afloat,  so  to  speak,  without  any  bearings.  But  that  may  be  for 
the  reason  that  we  are  looking  back  from  the  high  ground  of 


1  Human  Mind ;  p.  484. 

2  Ibid. ;  p.  83. 


27 

logical  organization.  At  any  rate,  Sully  maintained  that  these 
"bearings"  take  on  definite  character  only  with  the  further  de- 
velopment of  experience ;  only,  that  is,  with  the  arrival  of  antici- 
pation and  its  consequent  disappointment.  And  certainly  that 
argument  is  difficult  of  refutation  which  holds  that  disappointed 
expectation  precedes  and  provokes  reflection  upon  the  past,  upon 
the  relation  of  antecedent  to  consequent.  As  long  as  the  child  is 
not  deceived  in  his  expectations,  but  always  finds  an  orange  the 
thing  his  idea  pictured,  just  so  long  is  he  going  to  be  ignorant 
of  sequence  in  nature,  and  happy  in  his  ignorance.  It  is  only 
when  the  orange  proves  to  be,  not  an  orange,  but  a  painted  ball, 
which  is  not  constituted  of  juicy  bites  that  the  child  begins  to 
scrutinize  its  shape,  color,  texture  and  other  attributes.  Nothing 
but  the  thwarting  of  credulous  expectation  will  drive  the  young 
mind  to  consider  the  basis  of  his  definite  anticipation,  and  give 
him  incentive  to  look  into  the  deeper  significance  of  antecedent 
and  consequent,  which  Bain  calls  the  correlate  of  assurance.  *  It 
alone  will  awaken  this  "conceptive  faculty  or  imagination,"  which 
is  the  other  grand  influence  (besides  disappointment)  in  trans- 
forming our  first  overweening  trust  into  deliberate  conclusions  of 
reason,  and  which  transforms  an  indeterminate,  formless  world 
into  a  world  having  all  the  form  and  meaning  given  by  the 
great  categories  of  co-existence,  sequence,  and  permanent  exist- 
ence. 

Our  study  of  James  Sully  thus  far  may  be  summarized  by  say- 
ing that  belief  demands  as  the  necessary  condition  of  its  advent 
into  life,  some  rudimentary  experience,  "more  especially  some 
sensation,"  *  and  that  this  meager  experience  becomes  in  mature 
belief,  definite,  objective  fact,  existing  for  presentation  as  per- 
manent, independent  objects.  This  in  psychological  belief  is  the 
sa?ne  as  in  logical.  "Belief  in  a  proposition,"  he  says,  "is  a  belief 
in  its  truth ;  that  is,  in  its  correspondence  with  the  actual  relation 
of  things." ''  But  the  question  we  want  to  raise  now  is,  What  of 
inseparable  associations,  emotion,  action — does  Sully  count  them 
as  conditions  of  belief.  The  answer  is  short — he  does,  but  not 
as  indispensable  conditions.  He  accepts  J.  S.  Mill's  criticism  of 


1  Human  Mind;    p.  93. 

'  Ibid. ;   p.  81. 

*  Outlines  of  Psychology;   p.  398. 


28 


inseparable  association  (it  does  not  account  for  our  choosing  be- 
tween memory  and  imagination)  against  identifying  belief  with 
emotion.  He  reasons  thus:  "The  mode  of  its  (belief's)  origin, 
the  impartial  range  of  its  objects,  and  the  fact  that  it  holds  com- 
mon relation  to  all  the  emotions  properly  so  called,  renders  it 
very  desirable  to  classify  them  together."  *  With  respect  to  the 
claim  of  the  action-theory  to  account  for  all  human  conviction, 
he  remonstrates  that  there  are  in  our-  experience  beliefs  that 
cannot  possibly  be  explained  on  the  basis  of  action;  as  for  ex- 
ample, the  case  when  the  expectation  of  coming  harm  becomes 
paralyzing  terror.  The  raw  material  of  belief  is  not  to  be 
found  in  feeling,  emotion,  or  action;  belief  is  ultimate.  Feeling 
and  action,  however,  have  an  effect  on  assurances,  but  not  di- 
rectly; only  mediately,  through  ideas,  which  alone  have  a  direct 
bearing  upon  conviction.  Comprehensively  and  compactly  put, 
belief  at  its  full  includes  for  this  author  intellectual  representation, 
feeling  and  active  impulse,  and  if  it  be  of  the  ideal  kind,  also  a 
certain  amount  of  restraining  will. 

Stout  undertakes  an  explanation  of  belief  from  an  analytical 
point  of  view,  and  works  out  a  theory  of  much  breadth.  This 
theory  is  sufficiently  comprehensive  to  include  both  the  action- 
theory  of  Bain  and  the  association  theory  of  James  Mill.  Bain 
held  that  the  "relation  of  belief  to  activity  is  expressed  by  saying 
that  what  we  believe,  we  act  upon."  This  Stout  approves.  There 
is  no  question  that  a  confident  state  of  mind  tends  to  express 
itself  in  action;  conviction  and  activity  are  really  correlated  to 
each  other.  Bain's  mistake  was  not  that  he  made  his  theory  too 
sweeping,  but  that  he  did  not  make  it  sweeping  enough.  Limiting 
action  to  phenomena  extrinsic  to  the  mind  was  where  he  made  his 
mistake.  "He  considers  only  trains  of  muscular  movements,  pro- 
ducing a  corresponding  train  of  effects  in  the  material  environ- 
ment. But  even  where  such  trains  exist,  the  mental  action  with 
which  belief  is  connected,  does  not  consist  in  these  overt  move- 
ments, but  in  the  prior  process  of  framing  a  plan.  But  there  is 
no  essential  difference  between  this  inward  process  and  that  by 
which  we  work  out  a  theoretical  result  without  reference  to  ex- 
ternal action." a  And  so,  whether  the  experience  be  theoretical  or 

1  Sensation  and  Intuition ;   p.  100. 

1  Stout;  Analytical  Psychology;  vol  II,  p.  237. 


29 

practical,  it  makes  no  difference;  the  same  principle  applies  in 
one  case  as  well  as  in  the  other;  confidence  and  action  are  cor- 
relates. In  either  case,  we  act  only  because  we  are  thus  trusting 
the  means  to  the  end.  The  action-theory,  made  thus  thorough- 
going, becomes  immune  to  a  large  part  of  the  criticism  that 
prov.ed  the  position  of  Bain  vulnerable ;  such  criticism,  for  ex- 
ample, as  that  "psychical  activity  seems  physiologically  to  con- 
sist in  muscular  activity,"  and  "that  it  will  rain  tomorrow  seems 
almost  the  same  as  buying  an  umbrella  today." '  In  the  opinion 
of  Stout,  "it  is  needless  to  say  that  the  theoretical  series  must 
be  through  and  through  constituted  by  beliefs ;  and  that  our  con- 
fidence in  the  result  depends  on  our  confidence  in  the  antecedent 
steps.  .  .  .The  whole  body  of  beliefs  forms  a  system  of 
interdependent  parts;  it  is  the  coherence  of  the  system  which 
constitutes  the  possibility  of  its  component  elements."  ! 

It  is,  of  course,  plainly  to  be  seen  that  this  active  aspect  of 
belief  is  in  intimate  relation  with  the  author's  "Conative  and 
Cognitive  Synthesis."  We  see  it  in  the  following  statements: 
"A  practical  need  is  one  which  demands  for  its  ultimate  satis- 
faction an  actual  change  produced  in  the  environment,  or  in  the 
relation  of  the  organism  to  the  environment ;  or  at  least,  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  power  to  produce  such  change.  Theoretical 
needs,  on  the  contrary,  require  for  their  ultimate  satisfaction  only 
an  extension  of  knowledge  and  removal  of  doubt  without  altera- 
tion in  the  things  known."  And  again:  "In  the  beginning  of 
mental  life,  practical  needs  are  paramount.  Purely  intellectual 
curiosity  disengages  itself  from  these  by  a  process  of  gradual 
evolution." 5  The  fact  that  "the  growth  of  our  intellectual  nature 
consists  in  the  growing  definiteness  and  determinateness  of  our 
'active'  nature," 4  is  a  presupposition  of  all  belief,  is  quite  manifest 
from  the  criticism  which  Stout  prefers  against  Bain  when  he, 
perhaps  in  an  attempt  to  take  account  of  positive  convictions, 
modifies  his  original  theory  of  the  nature  of  belief,  and  declares 
the  correct  view  to  be  "that  belief  is  a  primitive  disposition  to 
follow  out  any  sequence  that  has  once  been  experienced,  and  to 

1  Bradley:  Logic;  pp.  18  ff. 

2  Stout:    Analytical   Psychology;   vol  II,   p.  237. 
8  Analytical  Psychology;  vol.  II,  pp.  93  f. 

4  Ibid. ;  p.  237. 


30 

expect  results.'' :  Stout's  objection  is  that  "this  statement  im- 
plies a  theoretical  interest  which  has  no  existence  in  the  rudimen- 
tary stages  of  mental  life."  The  basic  fact  that  we  have  to 
remember  as  we  cross  over  to  the  "passive  aspect"  of  the  theory 
in  hand,  is  that  both  the  practical  and  theoretical  activity  is  di- 
rected to  an  end,  and  depends  upon  the  condition  of  confidence  in 
the  intervening  steps  or  means ;  that  as  practical  conation  is  solely 
directed  to  the  effecting  of  an  unobstructed  course  for  trains 
of  extrinsic  changes,  mediating  a  desired  object,  just  so  theoretical 
conation  is  solely  directed  to  the  attainment  of  an  unobstructed 
course  for  trains  of  thought,  likewise  mediating  a  desired  end. 

Belief  as  limitation  of  activity,  and  belief  as  a  condition  of 
activity,  are  maintained  by  Stout  to  be  co-extensive  and  inter- 
dependent. They  are  the  two  sides  of  the  same  shield.  Indeed, 
confidence  would  be  an  impossibility  but  for  the  restraining  cir- 
cumstances set  up  by  nature,  requiring  definite  means  to  reach  a 
definite  end.  It  is  as  much  a  truth  that  we  cannot  experience 
conviction  without  the  force  of  limiting  conditions  as  it  is  that  we 
cannot  walk  without  walking  upon  something.  "The  steps  of  a 
process,  issuing  in  a  given  result,  are  fixed  independently  of  us. 
In  devising  means  to  an  end,  therefore,  we  are  not  free  to  make 
what  mental  combinations  we  will."  2 

Limitation  of  subjective  activity,  then,  as  we  are  distinctly  told, 
is  an  indispensable  factor  in  assurance.  But  what  does  this 
imply?  How  belief  leads  to  action,  we  know,  but  here  the  situ- 
ation is  reversed,  and  belief  follows  action.  The  answer,  how- 
ever, is  not  difficult.  By  the  limitative,  or  passive  aspect  of 
truth,  is  meant  simply  the  recognition  of  an  objective  control. 
The  control  by  which  we  lay  hold  of  the  means,  and  bring  our- 
selves to  a  desired  end  is  an  inner  control ;  but  the  control  which 
makes  us  consider  means,  bringing  us  up  with  a  tug  when  we 
neglect  such  consideration,  and  which  early  convinces  credulous 
natures  that  "wishing  is  not  having,"  that  control  is  outer.  Bnl 
outer  does  not  mean  something  that  is  foreign  to  our  subjective 
experience;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  a  very  present  fact  which  as- 
serts its  rights  both  in  presentation  and  representation,  directly, 
as  sense  objects,  or  indirectly  as  determining  ideas. 


1  Analytical  Psychology;  vol.  II,  p.  238. 
a  Ibid.;  p.  239. 


31 

''The  limitation  of  subjective  activity,"  the  author  writes,  "may 
take  two  distinct  forms.  We  find  ourselves  forced  to  think  in 
a  given  manner,  in  spite  of  an  attempt  to  think  otherwise.  In  this 
case,  the  limitation  is  an  actual  opposition  or  obstruction.  This 
happens  whenever  the  mind  entertains  the  possibility  of  an  alter- 
native which  it  is  ultimately  driven  to  reject.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  may  be  no  attempt  to  think  otherwise.1  As  a  typical  ex- 
ample of  the  latter,  we  may  think  of  a  man  feeling  the  noon-day 
sun  beating  upon  his  head.  The  mind  here  entertains  no  possi- 
bility of  an  alternative.  "There  is  no  question  that  the  Sun  is 
shining."  The  former  type  of  limitation — that  of  opposition  or 
obstruction  to  subjective  activity,  is  instanced  by  the  child  sucking 
at  an  empty  bottle,  or  by  the  inability  of  the  schoolboy  to  "think 
'5  plus  6  equals  12'  if  he  separates  the  '6'  into  its  units  and 
adds  them  one  by  one  to  '5'."  *  In  broad  outline  the  fields  repre- 
sented by  these  three  illustrations  (which  show  the  significance 
of  the  passive  side  of  belief)  are  as  follows:  "Impressional 
Experience,"  "Physical  Resistance,"  "Inseparable  Association," 
and  indirectly,  "Desire"  and  ^Imagination." 

A  striking  feature  of  Baldwin's  treatment  of  belief,  is  his 
endeavor  to  give  the  phenomenon  full  cognitive  standing  by  elim- 
inating its  undeveloped  or  germ- forms,  and  segregating  them 
under  a  separate  name:  "Reality-Feeling."  This  represents  a 
distinction  in  belief  phenomena  that  for  a  long  time  has  been 
coming.  And  the  distinction  is  an  important  one.  For,  as  long  as 
the  term  Belief  was  allowed  to  continue  its  old  significance,  and 
to  include  a  range  and  diversity  of  meaning  that  no  single  word 
could  compass,  there  was  no  hope  of  keeping  any  fences  in  the 
field ;  destructive  criticism  had  too  much  license. 

Definite  treatment  of  the  "Reality-Feeling"  is  deferred  to  a 
later  chapter,  where  it  will  be  taken  up  more  specifically.  The 
treatment  here  will  be  general,  only  so  much  as  it  required  to 
make  the  author's  theory  clear  in  its  other  parts.  There  is  a 
similarity  between  the  import  of  reality-feeling  and  the  import 
of  an  earlier  expression  we  came  upon  in  Bain — that  of  "Primi- 
tive Credulity."  In  Sully,  also,  we  found  belief-phenomena  of  a 
nature  resembling  this;  it  is  the  phenomena  that  appear  in  the 


1  Analytical  Psychology;    vol.  II,  p.  239. 
3  Ibid. ;  p.  243. 


mental  life  of  the  child  before  he  has  become,  through  disap- 
pointed anticipations,  skeptical  and  reflective;  it  might  be  called 
the  phenomena  of  the  pre-belief  period;  the  stage  of  natural 
trust  and  of  unthinking  confidence.  But  reality- feeling,  though  it 
has  prototypes,  is  not  without  variation  upon  these  prototypes. 
The  phrases,  ''primitive  start,"  "over-weening  confidence,"  "pris- 
tine assurance,"  used  as  synonyms  for  "primitive  credulity,"  are 
scarcely  synonymous  with  the  sense  of  the  following:  "The 
phrase,  reality-feeling,  denotes  the  fundamental  modification  of 
consciousness  which  attaches  to  the  presentative  side  of  sensa- 
tional states;  the  feeling  which  means,  as  the  child  afterwards 
learns,  that  an  object  is  really  there.  .  .  .the  idea  which  has 
the  reality  feeling  may  be  said  to  have  its  own  guarantee  of  its 
reality ;  it  is  a  'given'  and  my  feeling  of  it  is  direct  acquaintance 
with  it." 1l  There  is  here  something  besides  Bain's  restless  im- 
pulse toward  the  real ;  there  is  also  a  passive  consciousness  of  the 
real.  "Reality-feeling  at  this  early  stage  is  simply  the  fact  of  feel- 
ing. .  .  Existence  is  simply  Presence ;  but  Presence  is  Exist- 
ence, and  whatever  is  in  consciousness  is  real."  2  Physiologically 
explained,  reality-feeling  (and  also,  unreality-feeling,  or  absence- 
feeling,  which  is  the  negative  pole)  means  that  "any  sensory  pro- 
cess has  its  feeling  of  reality  element ;  and  any  tendency  to  move- 
ment has  its  unreality-feeling  in  the  sensory  process  which  satis- 
fies it." ' 

A  second  salient  characteristic,  perhaps  the  most  fundamental  in 
Baldwin's  system,  is  his  "Co-efficient  of  Reality."  The  meaning, 
taken  in  its  general  significance,  denotes  any  objective  stimulus, 
in  whatever  realm,  that,  coming  in  conjunction  with  some  impulse 
or  desire  or  expectation,  gives  to  consciousness  a  feeling  of  satis- 
faction and  conviction  of  reality;  while,  in  particular  application, 
it  means  a  real,  sensory  object,  and  not  a  phantom ;  an  honest  act, 
and  not  a  hypocritical  one ;  a  picture  that  proves  to  be  beautiful,  as 
anticipated,  and  not  unattractive ;  or,  it  means  that  mark  by  which 
I  recognize  an  image  as  representing  a  former  state  of  conscious- 
ness, or  belief,  in  a  thought  which  has  "consistency,  or  the  ab- 
sence of  presentational  or  conceptional  contradiction." 

1  Baldwin:    Feeling  and  Will;    p.  149. 

2  Ibid.;   p.  150. 
8  Ibid.;   p.  153- 


33 

Through  the  memory  co-efficient  of  reality  (also,  that  of 
thought,  as  we  shall  see  later),  Baldwin  has  been  able  to  free 
himself  from  the  sense-world,  which  has  always  lorded  it  over 
those  who  would  not  forsake  the  particular.  Contrary  to  Stout, 
he  holds  that  it  is  through  memory,  and  not  through  the  direct 
impression  of  the  senses,  that  we  obtain  our  knowledge  of  more 
than  the  mere  resistance  of  an  object;  that  is  to  say,  of  its  inde- 
pendent persistence.  ''To  a  creature  without  memory,  reality 
would  be  simply  successive  resistances;  but  with  memory  as 
recognition,  comes  also  persistence."  ]  Baldwin  would  include  in 
his  "co-efficient  of  externality,"  more  than  Stout's  sensational 
test,  and  more  also  than  the  possibility  (memory)  test  of  J.  S. 
Mill.  Either  of  these  positions  taken  alone  is  inadequate.  He 
writes :  "An  adequate  formula,  to  do  justice  to  both,  would  have 
to  run  something  like  this :  belief  in  external  reality  is  a  feeling  of 
the  necessary  character  of  sensations  of  resistance,  and  of  my 
ability  to  get  such  sensations  again  at  any  time."  :  Baldwin  thus 
obtains  two  kinds  of  present  reality:  "Present  external  reality, 
guaranteed  by  its  independence  of  my  will;  and  present  memory 
reality,  guaranteed  by  subjection  to  my  will."  * 

For  the  theory  now  before  us,  belief  properly  so  called,  is 
preceded  by  disappointment  and  doubt.  It  corresponds  to  those 
"later  modes  of  conviction"  which  Sully  found  to  come  into  con- 
sciousness only  with  chagrined  expectation,  and  with  the  develop- 
ment of  the  conceptive  faculty  or  imagination.  To  say  that  belief 
follows  doubt — follows,  that  is,  upon  its  resolution — is  to  say  that 
the  "feeling  of  belief  is  a  feeling  that  attaches  to  the  representa- 
tive faculty  primarily."'  The  naive  faith  that  once  trusted 
everything  and  everybody,  having  been  deceived  once  too  often, 
has  turned  skeptical,  and  mere  impressions  and  ideas  are  no  longer 
straightway  accepted  as  having  sufficient  credentials  in  their  own 
immediate  presence;  they  must  support  their  claim  by  a  reliable 
escort,  or  by  directly  convincing  the  senses.  And  if  they  can  sat- 
isfy the  requirements,  consciousness  at  once  consents,  and  the 
new  candidate  enters  the  world  of  reality.  To  represent  exactly 


1  Feeling  and  Will;    p.  166. 

2  Mind.  O.  S.,  vol.  XVI. 

8  Feeling  and  Will;  p.  165. 
4  Ibid.;  p.  155. 


34 

what  goes  on  in  experience  in  the  interval  between  the  arising 
of  doubt  and  its  solution,  this  figure  would  have  to  be  extended. 
We  should  have  to  consider  consciousness,  not  only  as  passing 
upon  the  eligibility  of  impressions  and  ideas,  but  as  being  in  want 
of  just  such  "real"  as  these  gave  promise  of  supplying.  How  near 
such  a  figure  comes  to  giving  the  meaning  of  Dr.  Baldwin's 
theory  may  be  seen  by  comparison  with  his  most  complete  defini- 
tion of  belief:  "Belief  in  anything.  .  .  .is  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  prescience  of  that  thing  as  fit  to  satisfy  a  need/' ' 

Section  II:  Pathological. 

It  seems  fair  to  say  of  the  pathological  investigation  of  belief 
or  of  the  " feeling  of  reality,"  that  it  has  not  advanced  far  enough 
in  experiment  and  observation  to  find  a  basis  sufficiently  broad  to 
support  a  theory.  The  acquisition  of  facts  has  not  reached  that 
degree  of  accumulation  where  the  chief  demand  is  for  a  theory 
to  interpret  their  significance.  For  this  reason,  Janet  is  found 
urging  that  most  stress  be  laid,  not  on  hypotheses,  but  on  the 
observation  of  facts.2  But  though  the  results  arrived  at  in  patho- 
logical study  of  the  nature  and  cause  of  human  certainty  fall 
short  of  the  amount  necessary  to  justify  more  than  tentative  con- 
clusions, these  conclusions  are,  nevertheless,  not  to  be  disregarded ; 
and  for  the  old  reason  that  a  mental  function  which  resists  com- 
prehension when  in  normal  condition,  may  when  in  an  abnormal 
state  become  amenable  to  the  understanding. 

To  the  question  as  to  what  new  fact  the  pathological  investiga- 
tion has  discovered,  the  only  safe  reply  would  seem  to  be  that 
pathology  has  discovered  no  new  fact,  but  only  emphasized  an 
old  one;  namely,  that  belief  is  intimately  connected  with  the 
activity-sources  in  our  nature.  The  feeling  of  certainty,  as  also 
the  feeling  of  reality,  has  no  a  priori  guarantee  to  fall  back  upon, 
but  like  health  or  disease,  must  depend  upon  biological  conditions. 
Confidence  springs  from  all  parts  of  the  self.  It  is  not  something 
which  has  its  origin  in  a  corner  of  our  nature ;  say,  the  intellectual 
corner.  As  Professor  James  says,  "the  mere  fact  of  appearing  as 
an  object  at  all  is  not  enough  to  constitute  reality."  ' 

1  Feeling  and  Will;  p.  171. 

2  From  Dr.  Hoch's  paper,  cited  below. 

'  James:  Principles  of  Psychology;  vol.  II,  p.  293. 


35 

What  those  who  have  studied  the  pathology  of  belief,  or  of  the 
feeling  of  reality,  think  about  the  two  subjects,  is  briefly  but 
representatively  given  in  two  articles:   one,  a  review,  and  the 
other,  a  carefully  argued  theory.     The  former  is  by  Dr.  August 
Hoch   ("A  review  of  some  recent  papers  upon  the  loss  of  the 
feeling  of  reality,  and  kindred  symptoms").1     The  latter  is  by  C. 
Bos  ("Pathologic  de  la  Croyance").2     Dr.  Hoch  reports  that  the 
loss  of  the  feeling  of  reality  is  commonly  found  in  one  or  another 
of  three  spheres  of  existence;  that  relating  to  the  individual's 
own  activities  or  thoughts  or  that  relating  to  the  outside  world  or 
to  the  body.     A  patient  will  say  that  vision  is  cut  off;  that  the 
eyes  do  not  reach  out ;  that  food  has  no  taste ;  that  hearing  is  not 
clear;  or  complain  of  inability  to  feel  the  various  parts  of  the 
body ;  or  say  that  he  has  "no  thoughts,"  asserting  that  the  mind 
is  without  content,  except  as  it  comes  from  the  conversation  of  an- 
other.    In  attempting  an  explanation  of  the  loss  of  the  sense  of 
value  or  appreciation  of  the  facts  of  experience  it  has  been  found 
that  these  symptoms  are  present  when  it  is  impossible  to  demon- 
strate objectively  any  sensory  disorders,  except,  perhaps,  fleeting 
changes  which  may  obtain  in  "grave  cases,  where  the  somato- 
psychic  alterations  are  most  marked."     Dr.  Hoch  thinks  more 
studies  are  needed  to  decide  this  point.    Janet  is  inclined  to  op- 
pose the  idea  that  the  loss  of  the  feeling  of  reality  has  any  connec- 
tion  with   disorders   of   organic   sensation,   and   to    regard   the 
common  factors  in  these  cases  as  being  a  peculiar  sense  of  incom- 
pleteness in  regard  to  perceptions,  emotions  and  actions.      "The 
mind  does  not  carry  out  its  processes  to  their  normal  completion." 
He  therefore  ventures  to  relate  the  "unreality"  experience  to  a 
"lowering  of  cerebral  activity." !     Storch  and  his  followers,  how- 
ever, hold  to  a  theory  of  explanation  which  contrasts  with  that  of 
Janet.    It  is  based  upon  the  claim  that  the  "feeling  of  the  reality 
of  external  objects,  and  the  projection  into  space,  depend  upon 
the  association  of  muscle  sensations  with  space  perceptions." ' 
This  view  asserts  that  the  change  which  causes  the  feeling  of  un- 
reality is  to  be  found  "primarily  in  a  disorder  of  the  conscious- 

1  Psychological  Bulletin,  1905. 

2  Revue  Philosophic,  Ixviii. 
1  Loc.  cit.;   p.  237. 

.    4  Psychological  Bulletin,  1905;  p.  237. 


36 

ness  of  the  body,  and  insufficient  valuation  of  organic  sensations ; 
and  secondarily,  in  a  disorder  of  the  consciousness  of  the  external 
world."  The  question  as  to  the  unreality  of  ideas  is  explained  by 
the  fact  that  they  consist  of  memories  of  sense-impressions  and 
organic  sensations.  This  theory  agrees  with  that  of  Janet  in 
not  making  unreality-feeling  depend  upon  disorders  of  organic 
sensations ;  its  changes  may  be  regarded  like  the  agnosis,  as  asso- 
ciation-disorders, and  not  as  anaesthesia.1  But  it  is  also  to  be 
noted  that  in  his  review  Dr.  Hoch  mentions  the  fact  that  the 
symptoms  attending  the  loss  of  the  feeling  of  reality  present  a 
close  relation  to  emotional  changes,  which  may  both  succeed  and 
precede  them.  And  the  fact  that  these  changes  are  of  the  depres- 
sive kind,  suggests  the  fact  that  even  in  the  "association-explana- 
tion," mental  weakness  may  have  a  part. 

C.  Bos  in  his  paper,  "Pathologic  de  la  Croyance,"  traces  every 
irregularity  of  belief  to  a  common  cause.  Whether,  he  says,  the 
alteration  be  hallucination,  credulity,  incredulity  or  doubt,  the 
cause  is  the  same:  a  powerlessness  or  weakness  of  the  mental 
activity.  Hallucination,  "the  simplest  kind  of  illusory  belief,"  is 
for  Bos  a  case  where  the  weakness  of  the  mind  is  over-run  by 
the  image.  And  cre'dulity,  which  parallels  hallucination,  differs 
from  it  only  in  the  fact  that  the  illusion  is  brought  about,  not  by 
an  image,  but  by  an  idea;  the  credulous  welcome  an  idea  as 
the  one  suffering  hallucination  welcomes  an  image.  These  two 
illusory  states  of  consciousness,  however,  fall  prey  to  deception 
from  the  same  incapacity;  they  lack  what  the  writer  calls  "the 
second  moment."  When  the  image  or  idea  first  comes  into  the 
range  of  attention  ("the  first  moment")  the  attitude  toward  it  is 
the  same  in  the  mind  subject  to  hallucination  or  credulity,  as 
in  the  normal  or  mature  mind;  at  this  stage,  the  presentation  is 
before  the  mind  simply  as  a  certain  content.  But  this  period  of 
agreement  is  of  short  duration.  The  "second  moment"  comes 
quickly,  and  in  that  the  sane  and  tempered  individual  considers 
(unconsciously,  most  often)  the  escort  of  the  presented  image 
or  idea — the  time  and  place  associates,  etc.,  and  later,  comes  to  a 
conclusion.  But  into  the  mind  open  to  hallucination  or  credulity, 
this  scrutinizing,  saving,  "second  moment"  does  not  enter.  It  is 
this  inability  to  overhaul  his  ideas  that  makes  the  credulous  per- 
son believe  such  unreasonable  things  as  that  the  President  (of 

1  Psychological  Bulletin,  1905;  p.  238. 


37 

France)  is  to  be  present  at  a  village  fete,  or  that  a  certain  neighbor 
is  four  hundred  years  old.  The  mind  of  such  an  individual  is 
able  only  to  suggest  the  bare  idea ;  for  the  rest,  all  is  passiveness 
and  psychic  poverty.  There  is  no  energy  left  from  the  "first 
moment"  to  give  to  the  "second  moment." 

With  the  incredulous  or  negative-minded,  there  is  the  same 
falling  off  of  mental  activity ;  the  same  lack  or  insufficient  buoy- 
ancy of  thought.  In  the  case  of  the  "negator,"  there  is,  though, 
more  effort  required  than  in  the  case  of  the  credulous,  for  only 
in  the  second  moment  can  there  be  denial.  But  this  denial  is 
forced  by  fixed  ideas  that  play  the  role  of  Cerebus,  and  repulse 
before  examination  any  ideas  not  like  themselves.  This  fact  ex- 
plains such  conduct  as  that  displayed  by  a  person  who  refuses  to 
go  to  bed  because  there  is  no  night,  or  by  the  sick  person  who 
refuses  to  believe  that  there  is  cannonading  in  the  city,  because 
he  thinks  it  a  pretext  to  keep  him  shut  up.  Incredibility,  or  neg- 
ativity of  mind,  is  plainly  an  obstinacy,  a  contradiction,  an  arrest 
from  cramp  or  immobility. 

Doubt  is  also  a  result  of  diminished  mental  activity.  The 
illusions  of  hallucination  and  credulity  are  traced  only  indirectly 
to  mental  weakness,  but  doubt  is  traced  directly.  Though  there 
is  a  blind  automatism  in  credulity,  and  in  doubt  great  intellectual 
development,  yet  there  is  ultimately  no  difference  in  the  two  forms 
of  illusion.  The  doubter  cannot  triumph  over  his  distrust  and 
inhibit  the  impulse  to  disbelieve,  any  more  than  the  individual  at 
the  play  of  credulity  or  hallucination  can  master  his  overweening 
trust,  and  inhibit  the  impulse  to  believe.  Belief  and  will  are  both 
troubled  by  doubt.  This  fact  is  seen  in  cases  where  hesitation 
reaches  the  stage  of  delirium,  as  for  example  in  the  case  that 
would  not  eat,  for  trying  to  decide  whether  one  "eats  to  live," 
and  who  died  with  the  question  unsolved.  The  will  cannot  cut 
the  Gordian  knot.  Since,  therefore,  will  and  belief  are  identified 
even  in  doubt,  C.  Bos  is  permitted  to  draw  the  general  conclusion 
that  all  alterations  of  belief  have  a  common  character,  "which  is 
a  powerlessness  or  weakness  of  the  mental  activity  under  its 
higher  form." 

Section  III:  Experimental. 

Professor  Titchener,  in  his  recent  book  of  lectures  on  "Experi- 
mental Psychology  of  the  Thought  Processes,"  remarks  that 
"the  experimental  technique  for  the  study  of  judgment  in  particu- 


38 

lar,  has  not  yet  been  perfected."  J  And  of  the  feeling  of  reality, 
he  says  that  he  has  "not  yet  carried  the  question  into  the  labora- 
tory." !  Nor  does  he  in  his  criticism  of  the  different  explana- 
tions of  this  feeling  mention  anyone  who  has  made  any  labora- 
tory investigation  directly  bearing  on  the  subject.  Indeed,  this 
field  of  research  seems  to  await  the  coming  of  the  experimental- 
ist; and  accordingly,  any  insight  into  the  nature  or  origin  of 
belief  or  kindred  phenomena  that  comes  from  this  source  may  be 
expected  to  come  only  indirectly,  that  is  to  say,  by  a  study  of  the 
laboratory  work  on  judgment,  which  is  at  present  being  carried 
on  by  the  "method  of  examination"  (Ausfrage-experimente), 
and  particularly  that  done  by  the  experimentalists  of  the  Wurz- 
burg  school. 

The  question  for  the  psychologists  to  decide  in  the 
matter  of  belief  is  what  particular  mental  content  the 
individual  has  at  the  time  he  is  experiencing  the  feeling  of  cer- 
tainty. Or,  to  state  the  same  thing  from  a  point  of  view  strictly 
judgmental,  the  question  is  as  to  the  nature  of  "Bewusstseinlage," 
which  Professor  Titchener  translates  as  "meaning  something  like 
posture,  or  attitude  of  consciousness." '  The  latter  question  is  the 
one  dealt  with  in  the  experimentation  on  the  thought-processes. 
To  find  what  interpretation  the  experimentalists  give  the  "atti- 
tude" (Bewusstseinlage)  shall  accordingly  be  the  object  of  this 
section.  But  before  we  turn  ourselves  to  that  question,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  give  attention  to  another  which  naturally  takes  pre- 
cedence :  the  question  of  the  problem  or  Aufgabe. 

By  Aufgabe  is  meant  an  influence  that  determines  the  course 
of  conscious  experience.  Titchener  is  speaking  of  the  Aufgabe 
(in  its  general  signification)  when  he  says  that  "this  notion  of  the 
external  and  precedent  determination  of  consciousness,  comes  into 
experimental  psychology  by  hints  and  partial  recognitions  in  the 
late  ?8o's  of  the  last  century.")4  And  also,  when  he  says  that 
"experimental  results  in  general  are  seen  to  be  functions  of  the 

1  Titchener:    Experimental    Psychology    of    the    Thought    Processes; 
P-  Si. 

2  Experimental  Psychology  of  the  Thought  Processes ;  p.  255. 
1  Ibid.;  p.  100. 

4  Ibid. ;   p.  163. 


39 

instructions  given." '  The  employment  of  hypnotism  in  the  psy- 
chological laboratory  is  a  case  of  the  "problem"  at  its  maximum.1 
On  this  subject  Watt  is  quoted  as  follows:  "What  transforms 
into  judgments  the  mere  sequence  of  experiences  that  we  discover 
when  we  analyze  the  processes  of  judgment,  and  what  distin- 
guishes a  judgment  from  a  mere  sequence  of  experiences,  is  the 
problem."3  It  is  a  further  opinion  of  Watt  that  the  problem  need 
not  always  be  in  consciousness,  but  may  sometimes  have  what 
Messer  calls  "the  character  of  the  obvious."  The  adjustments  of 
the  body  to  a  stimulus,  though  at  first  consciously  made,  may,  as 
the  reacting  mind  becomes  more  accustomed  to  the  conditions, 
lapse  into  an  unconscious  procedure;  paralleling  in  the  sphere  of 
thought  what  we  find  in  the  sphere  of  action,  in  the  case  of  the 
skilled  pianist  who  plays  automatically  notes  that  he  once  played 
calculatingly.  A  problem  of  this  kind  is  that  of  the  "cognition  of 
real  things — that  is,  of  giving  such  a  form  to  our  perception, 
thought,  and  speech  that  they  are  adequate  to  real  things,  whether 
we  are  concerned  with  the  persistence,  properties,  states,  changes, 
relations  or  value  of  the  real.4  With  this  last  remark  in  expla- 
nation of  the  Aufgabe,  we  come  naturally  to  the  question  of  the 
attitude  (Bewusstseinlage)  and  the  feeing  of  realness,  or  belief. 

The  "problem"  may  be  considered  the  drive-wheel,  which  starts 
consciousness  off,  and  the  attitude  or  postures,  the  accompanying 
phenomena  or  meaning.  In  Messer's  thought,  as  Titchener  states 
him,  "the  observer  is  given  a  certain  problem.  The  problem  finds 
representation  in  consciousness,  verbal  or  other;  the  observer 
understands  it,  has  the  attitude  or  Bewusstseinlage,  of  meaning; 
and  has  the  good  will  to  follow  instructions."1  It  will  save 
going  into  useless  detail  if  we  quote  again  at  this  point  from 
Titchener.  He  says  that  "Messer's  intellectual  attitudes  corre- 
spond to  Ach's  awareness  of  meaning;  and  Messer's  emotional 
attitudes,  to  Ach's  awareness  of  relation ;  and  thus,  to  the  original 
Bewusstseinlagen  of  Marbe  and  Orth.'"  Now,  Messer's  intel- 
lectual attitudes  and  Ach's  awareness  of  meaning  are  "matters 


Experimental  Psychology  of  the  Thought  Processes;  p.  162. 

Ibid.;  p.  120. 

Ibid. 

Ibid.;  p.  124 

Ibid.;  p.  140. 

Ibid.;  p.  109. 


of  the  understanding,  pure  and  simple,"  *  and  so,  need  not  detain 
us.  It  is  the  others  with  which  we  are  concerned.  They  bring 
into  experience  affective  and  volitional  elements  which  are  re- 
ported by  the  subjects  most  frequently  as  surprise,  perplexity, 
hesitation,  uncertainty,  doubt ;  or  their  opposites,  satisfaction,  cer- 
tainty, relief,  assent,  conviction.  It  is  significant  that  the 
Bewusstseinlage  is  found  by  Titchener  to  resemble  James' 
"fringes,"  Hoffding's  "quality  of  familiarity,"  and  many  of 
Wundt's  feelings,  especially,  that  "feeling  which  is  the  pioneer  of 
knowledge." '  This  takes  us  back  to  belief  as  we  saw  it  in  James, 
who  said  that  the  "real"  is  a  "fringe."  We  remember  the  criticism 
against  this  position ;  it  was  declared  to  lack  the  objective  factor 
of  outer  control;  to  have  the  active  principle  of  belief,  but  not 
its  counterpart ;  and  to  be  incomprehensible,  how  the  fringe  could 
be  the  objective  meaning  of  the  psychic  object  of  which  it  is  the 
fringe. 

The  question  of  attitude  (Bewusstseinlage)  thus  narrowing  it- 
self down  to  a  matter  of  how  one  idea  (fringe)  can  be  the  mean- 
ing of  another,  presents  us  our  problem  in  bold  simplicity.  Titch- 
ener, limiting  the  mental  elements  to  two — sensation  and  feel- 
ing— finds  that  one  idea  (like  James'  fringe)  may  give  meaning  to 
another  idea;  the  former  idea  being  the  context  of  the  latter. 
Of  the  context  he  writes:  "I  understand  by  context  simply  the 
mental  process  or  complex,  or  mental  processes,  which  accrues  to 
the  original  idea  through  the  situation  in  which  the  organism  rinds 
itself."'  And  by  "situation"  he  means  "any  form  of  Aufgabe 
that  is  normal  to  the  particular  organism"  and  not  "a  task  or 
problem  which  may  be  set  to  any  organism  prepared  or  unpre- 
pared." We  may  now  comprehend  the  cause  and  meaning  of  his 
opinion  on  the  subject  of  belief,  or  the  feeling  of  certainty :  "The 
feelings  of  reality  seem  to  be  always  of  an  emotive  character, 
implying  affective  process  in  connection  with  kinaesthetic  or  other 
organic  sensations,  and  running  their  course  under  the  influence 
of  an  Aufgabe,  or  Einstellung  (predisposition)."4  We  have  these 
feelings  of  reality,  Titchener  indicates,  "when  we  find  that  the 


1  Experimental   Psychology  of  the  Thought   Processes;   p.   108. 

2  Ibid.;     pp.  102  f. 

3  Ibid.;  p.   175. 
*  Ibid.;  p.  255. 


41 

brooch  we  have  picked  up  is  real  gold,  and  that  the  table  we  have 
spied  in  the  second-hand  store,  real  mahogany;  or  when,  after 
plowing  through  the  introductory  pages,  we  come  to  the  real  point 
in  a  scientific  paper."  *  Likewise,  an  unexpected  meeting  with  a 
friend  is  said  to  give  us  the  same  feeling.  That  the  feeling  of 
reality  does  come  into  our  experience  just  as  Titchener  portrays  it, 
our  "flesh  and  blood"  stand  ready  to  witness ;  we  are  having  just 
such  feelings  every  day.  It  is  a  question,  however,  whether  his 
conception  of  the  nature  of  belief  is  sufficiently  comprehensive; 
whether  his  feelings  of  reality,  though  having  marks  of  belief, 
have  all  the  marks.  For  Miss  Calkins,  Belief  is  "an  idea  distin- 
guished both  by  the  feeling  of  realness  and  by  the  'relational'  feel- 
ing of  congruence."  ;  The  Wurbzurg  school  (as  we  have  already 
seen)  mean  more  by  their  Bewusstseinlage  (attitudes,  including 
certainty  and  conviction)  than  just  sensation  and  feeling.  Messer, 
in  fact,  goes  the  length  of  maintaining  for  judgment  (belief) 
the  "objective  reference  of  the  Austrian  school."  "In  the  every- 
day life  of  mind,"  he  asserts,  "our  experience  is  intentional,  di- 
rected upon  objects."  And  "the  psychologist  who  should  sup- 
pose that  perception  and  thought  may  be  adequately  characterized 
by  the  simple  ascertainment  of  the  sensations  and  ideas  present 
in  consciousness  would  be  like  a  man  who  should  seek  to  appre- 
hend the  real  nature  of  money,  by  simply  investigating  the 
materials  out  of  which  money  is  made."  J 

Without  further  review  of  the  matter,  it  is  clear  that  the  center 
round  which  discussion  gathers  is  that  of  deciding  what  are  the 
component  parts  of  the  meaning  that  constitutes  a  belief-situ- 
ation. Is  this  meaning  exhausted  by  reading  off  an  "emotive 
character,"  "affective  processes,"  "kinaesthetic  and  other  organic 
sensations,"  and  an  "Aufgabe"  to  give  direction  and  motive? 4  Or 
will  it  be  found  that  belief  is  represented  in  consciousness  primar- 
ily by  a  relational  character;  the  relation  between  idea  and  ob- 
ject?5 With  these  questions  holding  the  field,  there  is  not  much 
chance  for  positive  conclusions.  This  much,  however,  may  be 

1  Experimental  Psychology  of  the  Thought  Process;  p.  254. 

2  Calkins :  Introduction  to  Psychology ;  p.  124. 

*  Titchener:  Experimental     Psychology    of    the    Thought     Processes; 
P-  133- 

*  Ibid.;  p.  255. 
6  Ibid.;  p.  253. 


42 

said:  the  experimentalists  consider  the  existence  of  feelings  of 
reality,  or  belief,  to  be  beyond  question;  and  also  consider  it  a 
possibility  that  they  may  "include  some  unanalyzable  core  or 
residuum,  a  non-sensational  and  non-affective  elementary  process ; 
and  that  this  core  or  residuum  may  be  their  essential  as  reality- 
feelings."  '  Finally,  we  may  say  that,  though  undecided  about  the 
nature  of  belief,  experimental  psychology  is  not  without  cues  for 
an  epistemological  study  of  the  subject,  and  may  be  found  to 
give  support  to  the  view  maintained  later  in  this  paper. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Criticism. 

Looking  back  upon  the  sinuous  path  we  have  made  in  trying  to 
find  a  way  through  the  diverse  interpretations  of  belief,  we  cannot 
doubt  that  interpretation  often  misled  us;  that  it  was  frequently 
misinterpretation.  And  yet,  the  light  of  theory  which  we  chose  as 
guide  in  our  search  for  the  meaning  of  belief  was  not  a  will-o'-the 
wisp;  it  always  brought  us — in  time — to  some  fruitful  end.  Of 
the  theories  of  belief  that  have  passed  before  us  in  review,  none 
was  wholly  without  significance;  each  of  them  had  at  least  one 
of  those  features  we  have  seen  standing  out  boldly  and  recurring 
in  following  theories.  That  is  to  say,  we  found  no  theory  but 
related  belief  to  feeling,  or  to  cognition  (with  reference  to 
reality),  or  to  action;  and  sometimes  belief  was  related  to  all 
three  phenomena. 

Belief  seems  both  to  be  and  to  be  influenced  by  feeling;  it  ap- 
pears to  be  dependent  continually  upon  the  cognition  of  reality; 
and  it  has  intimate  relation  to  our  active  disposition.  The  earliest 
explanation  of  belief  was,  as  has  been  emphasized,  an  attempt  to 
identify  conviction  with  feeling ;  with  the  vivacity  of  ideas.  Hume 
considered  that,  in  the  last  analysis,  the  only  quality  of  mind 
essentially  necessary  to  constitute  human  confidence,  is  feeling; 
just  that  feeling  which  is  intrinsic  to  belief,  and  not  any  ex- 
traneous feeling.  Bain  later  identified  belief  with  the  active  phase 
of  our  nature,  and  Sully,  with  the  cognitive.  Baldwin  and  Stout 
have  so  far  corroborated  Sully  as  to  assert  that  belief  necessarily 
implies  the  cognition  of  reality ;  and  pathology  has  taken  its  stand 
with  Bain,  holding  that  belief  has  its  roots  in  the  activity-sources 

*  Experimental  Psychology  of  the  Thought  Processes;  p.  256. 


43 

of  our  being.  Hume  at  the  same  time  has  his  supporters.  Bage- 
hot  and  James  have  strongly  advocated  the  view  that  conviction  is 
a  feeling  or  emotion.  Belief,  they  say,  is  more  like  a  feeling  than 
anything  else.  Finally,  we  have  the  witness  of  experimental 
psychology  as  given  in  the  thought  processes.  The  evidence  here 
is  rather  incomplete,  but  what  there  is  favors  the  view  that 
belief  requires  over  and  above  its  inherent  feeling-nature  a  cer- 
tain attitude  or  relation,  perhaps  including  that  between  idea  and 
its  object. 

Manifestly,  belief  as  thus  defined  has  meaning  to  confusion; 
it  means  everything;  it  includes  in  some  way  the  whole  of  con- 
sciousness. But  how  can  belief  be  feeling,  cognition  and  action, 
all  three?  This  question  presents  an  insurmountable  difficulty 
if  we  turn  the  way  of  the  psychology  which  reduces  all  to  content. 
For,  considered  mainly  as  content,  how  represented  in  conscious- 
ness, whether  with  a  quality  that  is  simple,  or  one  that  is  complex, 
belief  refuses  to  comprehend  the  entire  mind;  it  prefers  to  be 
thought  of  as  a  feeling  that  feels  like  itself;  that  must  be  felt 
to  be  known;  or  as  a  feeling  that  combines  two  qualities;  that 
of  realness  and  that  of  congruity,  or  yet,  as  a  feeling  having  an 
emotive  character,  and  implying  affective  processes  in  connection 
with  certain  organic  sensations.  If,  however,  we  approach  belief 
by  another  way,  looking  upon  it  as  the  mental  state  or  function  of 
cognizing  reality,  or  as  being  the  consciousness  of  the  personal 
indorsement  of  reality ;  that  is,  looking  upon  it  as  a  phenomenon 
arising  out  of  the  accommodation  of  the  Self  to  its  environment, 
then  the  difficulty  is  no  longer  insurmountable.  For  from  this 
point  of  view,  belief  is  not  embarrassed  by  its  manifold  interpre- 
tation ;  feeling,  cognition  of  reality,  action — all  may  be  considered 
as  influences  in  bringing  belief  about;  they  furnish,  indeed,  the 
necessary  and  only  conditions  of  its  generation. 

In  speaking  of  feeling  and  cognition  (or  representative  knowl- 
edge) and  action  as  the  only  factors  that  will  produce  human 
confidence,  it  was  not  said  that  each  factor  was  indispensable  to 
the  product.  The  majority  of  the  leading  theories  of  belief  re- 
gard it  as  inseparably  related  to  representative  knowledge;  cer- 
tainty is  certainty  only  with  regard  to  the  truth  of  some  object 
or  event  that  has  been,  is,  or  may  be  in  experience  as  a  fact.  It 
was  held  against  Hume  that  he  was  unable  to  carry  his  theory 


44 


through  until  he  had  set  up  (by  a  "propensity  of  the  imagination" 
— that  is,  by  reflection)  an  objective  world  for  belief  to  believe 
in.  Bagehot  and  James  as  successors  of  Hume,  in  advocating 
the  view  that  conviction  is  of  the  feelings  (emotions)  enlarge 
upon  Hume  at  this  point.  Bagehot  is  positively  of  the  opinion 
that  primitive,  naive  trust  is  transformed  by  the  hardships  of 
experience  into  a  trust  that  waits  upon  deliberation,  and  that  is 
anchored  in  objective  reality.  Professor  James  is  less  positive, 
but  he  does  seem  to  say,  certainly  at  times,  that  assurance  is  of  an 
object  that  exists  as  "real"  and  that  is  represented  to  us  as  an 
idea.  That  conviction  depends  upon  thought  to  bring  it  to  its 
object,  and  thus,  for  its  being,  is  so  manifestly  the  view  of  James 
Mill,  his  son  J.  S.  Mill,  Sully,  Stout  and  Baldwin  that  merely  to 
mention  the  fact  is  enough.  And  as  for  Bain,  we  remember  that 
he  declared  belief  to  be  an  incident  of  cognition.  With  this  array 
of  evidence  we  can  scarcely  restrain  ourselves  from  joining  Sully 
in  his  statement  that  the  "primal  source  of  belief  lies  in  the  rela- 
tion of  representative  ideation  to  actual  presentation." 

We  may  now  turn  to  the  question  whether  feeling  or  action 
is  a  necessary  condition  for  the  experience  of  conviction.  It  has 
been  said  already  that  belief  in  itself  is  perhaps  of  the  essence  of 
feeling,  but  to  the  other  sorts  of  feeling — such  as  emotional 
excitement,  it  is  generally  agreed  to  have  no  vital  relevance.  When 
Bain  advanced  the  idea  that  action  is  the  basis  and  ultimate  cri- 
terion of  belief,  it  was  argued  against  him  that  in  many  cases,  as, 
for  example,  that  of  the  highest  theoretical  knowledge,  there  is  no 
active  disposition  aroused.  But  Stout  disarms  this  criticism  by 
counting  action  in  thought  as  a  condition  of  belief  in  theoretical 
ends.  That  there  is  activity  of  some  kind,  physical  or  mental, 
present  in  appreciation  of  reality  or  of  truth,  is  attested  by  the 
pathologists  when  they  talk  of  mental  weakness  causing  halluci- 
nation, credulity,  incredulity  and  doubt ;  and  of  the  loss  of  reality- 
feeling  depending  upon  the  lowering  of  cerebral  activity.  We 
find  the  same  meaning  expressed  by  Royce:  "Definite  belief  in 
external  reality  is  possible,"  he  writes,  "only  through  this  active, 
modifying,  and  constructing  addition  of  something  of  our  own  to 
the  impressions  that  are  actually  given  to  us."  3  There  is  no  ques- 
tion that  within  us  is  an  activity,  a  sort  of  motor-consciousness. 

1  Royce:    Religious  Aspects  of  Philosophy,  p.  321. 


45 

that  takes  a  hand  in  shaping  the  world  of  experience,  and  by 
virtue  of  that  act  feels  that  world  to  be  real.  This  fact  will  re- 
ceive emphasis  in  the  chapter  on  Assumption. 

CHAPTER  V. 
Reality-Feeling  and  Presumption. 

It  was  noted  on  page  35  that  the  meaning  implied  by  the  term 
reality-feeling  has  more  or  less  prevalence  in  most  theories  of 
belief.  The  references  given  there  were  few,  and  they  were 
given  with  the  promise  of  more  when  we  should  come  to  this 
chapter.  This  promise  we  shall  now  endeavor  to  fulfill,  and  for 
a  double  reason:  namely,  to  impress  the  fact  that  this  embryo 
type  of  belief  is  recognized  by  authorities,  and  to  explain  its 
meaning. 

From  Bain,  who  blazed  the  way  into  this  new  territory,  we 
have  the  following :  'The  belief  in  testimony  is  derived  from  the 
primary  credulity  of  the  mind  in  certain  instances  left  intact  under 
the  wear  and  tear  of  adverse  experience.  .  .  .It  never  oc- 
curs to  the  child  to  question  any  statement  made  to  it  until  some 
positive  force  on  the  side  of  skepticism  has  been  developed." 
This  statement  by  Bain  is  followed  up  by  Bagehot,  who  gives  it 
yet  more  emphatic  form.  He  writes :  "But  though  it  is  certain 
that  a  child  believes  all  assertions  made  to  it,  it  is  not  certain  that 
the  child  so  believes  in  consequence  of  a  special  intuitive  disposi- 
tion, restricted  to  such  assertions ;  it  may  be  that  this  indiscrim- 
inate belief  in  all  sayings  is  but  a  relic  of  an  omnivorous  acqui- 
escence in  all  states  of  consciousness,  which  is  only  just  extinct 
when  childhood  is  plain  enough  to  be  understood,  or  old  enough 
to  be  remembered."  Bagehot  in  another  place  in  his  essay 
expresses  the  view  that  we  are  born  believing  and  would  continue 
responding  to  the  ''strong  rush  of  confidence"  (his  emotional 
belief)  just  as  we  do  in  dreams,  if  we  were  not  thereby  brought 
into  contention  with  the  world.  Sully  does  not  say  that  we  are 
born  believing;  in  fact,  he  says  we  are  not;  and  that  a  certain 
amount  of  experience  must  precede  confidence;  but  he  reckons 
low  the  length  of  time  that  elapses  before  a  sufficient  experience 
has  come  to  set  up  the  earliest  form  of  belief :  "the  transition  from 
sensation  to  idea."  *  Of  this  early  confidence  he  speaks  as 


1  Sully:  Sensation  and  Intuition;  p.  82. 


46 

follows:  "When  the  infant  mind,  in  dream-like  thought,  had 
not  yet  learned  to  mark  off  the  present  and  the  past,  it  might  not 
improbably  even  then  have  vaguely  felt  the  strange  likeness  and 
unlikeness  between  the  faint  fugitive  idea  and  the  intense  absorb- 
ing sensation.  Now,  in  this  curious  mental  event,  the  partial 
reproduction  of  the  past  sensation  by  the  medium  of  a  present 
idea  felt  to  be  one  like  it,  one  seems  to  find  the  origin  of  the 
oldest  and  most  simple  form  of  belief."  *  "If  the  infant  could 
fully  describe  to  us  its  state  of  mind,  it  would  do  so  by  saying, 
'there  is  something  in  my  mind  that  carries  thought  away  to  an- 
other thing  brighter  and  better  than  itself,  which  thing  is  not  ex- 
actly in  my  mind  now,  but  seems  ready  to  enter  it.'  "  As  to  this 
early  or  germ-form  of  belief  or  reality-feeling,  James  expresses 
himself  through  the  illustration  of  the  child  and  the  hallucinatory 
candle.  To  the  onlooking  psychologist,  this  candle  exists  only  in 
the  individual  mind ;  has  no  status  among  other  facts,  etc.  But  the 
new-born  mind,  entirely  blank,  and  waiting  for  experience  to  be- 
gin, reacts  differently  to  it.  "It  can  spin  no  such  consideration  as 
these  (the  above)  about  it;  for  of  other  facts  actual  or  possible  it 
has  no  inkling  whatever.  The  candle  is  its  all — its  Absolute.  Its 
entire  faculty  of  attention  is  absorbed  by  it;  it  is;  it  is  that; 
it  is  there.  No  other  possible  candle  or  quality  of  this  candle ;  no 
other  place  or  possible  object  in  this  place;  no  alternative,  in 
short,  suggests  itself  as  even  conceivable;  so,  how  can  the  mind 
help  believing  the  candle  real?"  Professor  James  has  the 
feeling  of  reality  excited  by  the  very  first  object  that  enters  the 
mind,  while  Sully  considers  that  a  sensation  and  its  idea  must 
have  passed  through  the  mind  often  enough  to  be  noticeably  dis- 
tinguished before  there  can  be  any  reality-feeling.  This  con- 
tradiction, however,  is  but  a  question  of  when  primitive  trusts 
starts;  each  writer  equally  corroborating  such  an  embryo  faith, 
or  undifferentiated  substance  of  belief.  As  further  evidence  for 
this  unreasoning  natural  confidence,  we  may  turn  to  Stout,  who 
speaks  of  it  in  these  words :  "A  pre-formed  anticipation  may  be 
destroyed  by  collision  with  facts.  It  is  through  such  experiences 
that  the  unquestioning  credence  of  primitive  belief  gradually  gives 
place  to  a  comparatively  tentative  and  skeptical  habit  of  mind." 

This   series  of  quotations,  though   representing  a  variety  of 
points  of  view,  reveals  a  marked  unity  of  signification.    They  are 

1  Sully:   Sensation  and  Intuition;   p.  82. 


47 

all  of  one  accord  in  recognizing  that  childhood  begins  without 
skepticism,  and  with  utmost  confidence ;  without  doubt,  and  with 
perfect  certainty ;  without  distrust,  and  with  simple  reliance.  The 
first  feeling  is  not  of  unreality,  but  of  reality.  We  have  by  instinct 
enough  confidence  in  things  to  start  us  off  on  the  long  road  of 
accommodation  to  the  environment,  without  the  least  uncertainty 
or  misgiving.  This  wholesale  way  the  young  life  has  of  con- 
ferring reality  upon  everything  that  touches  it,  has  suggested  a 
motor  explanation.  Baldwin  relates  the  reality-feeling  to  gross 
attention ;  the  attention  with  the  large  open  maw  ready  to  devour 
whatever  comes  in  reach.  According  to  this  conception,  we  ap- 
preciate as  real  whatever,  either  by  force  of  external  conditions 
or  by  force  of  inner  organic  wants,  we  take  into  our  experience 
by  accommodation.  It  is  not  a  case  of  recognitive  belief,  but  of 
assimilative  incorporation;  we  live  here  by  faith,  and  not  by 
sight. 

Reality-feeling  may  be  further  designated  as  that  stage  in  the 
genetic  progression  of  consciousness  that  precedes  disappoint- 
ment and  doubt;  it  is  the  stage  of  presumption  or  the  taking  of 
things  as  being  what  they  first  appear  to  be.  It  is  well  repre- 
sented by  dreams,  for  in  them  we  go  along,  accepting  one  thing 
after  another,  in  whatever  order  the  things  come  and  however 
disparate  and  disconnected  they  are,  and  never  experience  a  single 
lapse  in  our  sense  that  all  is  real.  This  undisturbed  flow  of  simple 
credulity  that  runs  through  our  dreams  with  never  a  rift  in  its 
course,  does  so,  doubtless,  because  neither  external  facts  nor  in- 
ternal associations  are  there  to  contradict.  We  presume  on  the 
reality  of  what  we  dream,  just  as  the  child  presumes  upon  what 
it  experiences.  In  both  cases  there  is  the  primary,  undisturbed 
presumption  of  reality  that  Urban  speaks  of  as  giving  a  reality  in 
which  the  more  specific  existence-meaning1  has  not  yet  been 
differentiated,  and  as  meaning  the  mere  act  of  acceptance,  taking 
for  granted,  prior  to  the  explicit  taking  up  of  the  object  into  a 
predetermined  sphere  of  reality  through  the  existence  predicate. 
"In  contrast  with  any  meaning  of  reality  later  to  arise  and  attach 
to  an  object,"  writes  Baldwin,  "we  may  saw  that  it  is  here  simply 
presumed,  taken  for  granted,  that  the  object  is  real.  There  is  a 
presumption  of  the  dependableness  of  the  thing." ' 

1  Urban  :    Valuation ;   Its  Nature  and  Laws ;   p.  43. 
a  Baldwin :   Genetic  Logic ;   vol.  II,  p.  22. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
Quasi-Belief  and  Assumption. 

In  that  period  of  childhood  which  w.e  have  designated  by  th< 
term  "reality-feeling,"  consciousness  proceeds  on  its  way  of  cer- 
tainty and  confidence  with  an  ever  tenor.  "Pure  experience,"  or 
immediacy  of  feeling  or  simple  expectation,  had  not  as  yet  been 
so  seriously  disturbed  that  it  sought  support  in  memory,  and  thus 
transformed  itself  into  reflective  anticipation.  "Collision  with 
fact"  (collision  with  the  physical  and  social  tables  that  for  Bage- 
hot  gives  doubt)  had  not  occurred,  or  at  least  had  not  produced 
a  jar  sufficient  to  awaken  childhood  out  of  its  comatose  condition 
of  immediate  assurance.  But  disturbing  circumstances  were 
destined  sooner  or  later  to  break  down  this  original  equilibrium, 
and  to  provoke  unwary  confidence  into  doubt  and  alert  inquiry. 
That  this  second  stage  in  the  progression  of  belief-consciousness 
does  arise,  and  is  a  real  fact  in  the  growth  of  experience,  is  clearly 
the  opinion  of  many  writers.  Bagehot  refers  to  this  period  as  a 
time  in  which  "born-beliefs"  crosses  over  to  the  belief  of  delibera- 
tion and  evidence.  *  Bain  is  evidently  speaking  of  it  when  he 
says  that  "many  of  our  primitive  expectations  suffer  shipwreck  in 
the  contradictions  that  they  encounter."5  Sully  refers  to  this 
period  in  the  life  of  consciousness  as  that  in  which  the  mind 
looks  back  upon  the  past  before  it  acts ;  that  is,  looks  into  mem- 
ory to  see  what  basis  anticipation  has.  It  is  distinctly  the  subject 
of  the  following  passage  from  Stout :  "A  pre-formed  anticipa- 
tion may  be  destroyed  by  collison  with  facts.  It  is  through  such 
experience  that  the  unquestioned  credence  of  primitive  belief 
gradually  gives  place  to  a  comparatively  tentative  and  skeptical 
habit  of  mind."8  Baldwin  recognizes  such  a  stage  and  accounts 
for  it  by  the  failure  of  the  "co-efficients  of  reality"  to  satisfy.  "I 
doubt  an  image,  a  statement,  a  law,  because  it  does  not  meet  the 
demand  that  I  have  a  right  to  make  of  it,  if  its  claim  be  true."  4 

Further  references  are  not  needed  to  show  that  there  is  strong 
support  for  the  view  that  the  naive  faith  of  earliest  experience 


1  Emotion  and  Will;   p.  516. 

2  Analytical  Psychology;    vol.  II,  p.  240. 

8  Stout :  Analytical  Psychology ;  vol.  II,  p.  240. 
4  Feeling  and  Will,  p.  156. 


49 

is  turned  to  disappointment  and  doubt.  The  problem  that  chiefly 
concerns  us  is  not  whether  the  individual  comes  into  this  stage 
of  embarrassment  and  skepticism,  but  rather  as  to  the  way  he  gets 
out  of  it;  it  being  admitted  that  he  does — if  of  normal  energy, 
somehow  get  out  of  his  particular  doubts,  and  does  not  accept  his 
lot  in  careless  unconcern.  This  problem  leads  us  into  epistemol- 
Ogy — into  a  study  of  the  "development  of  knowledge  as  controlled 
by  facts."  1  Having  lost  its  first  grasp  on  reality,  how  now  does 
the  mind  regain  its  hold?  This  is  the  question  which  most  of 
all  lay  claim  to  our  attention.  But  it  has  a  solution,  suggested 
by  the  term  Assumption,  as  that  term  is  employed  in  current  dis- 
cussion of  the  theory  of  knowledge  and  belief. 

Assumption  denotes  active  disposition,  participation,  on  the  part 
of  the  inner;  it  denotes  subjective  control;  by  assumption  the 
psychic  experience  functions  as  a  selective  agency,  and,  equally 
with  objective  fact,  sets  up  certain  requirements  for  the  accept- 
ance of  the  new  materials  into  experience.  The  individual,  what- 
ever interest  impels  him,  whether  practical,  theoretical  or  aesthetic, 
is  ever  striving  to  enlarge  upon  the  present ;  at  one  time  he  is 
unknotting  a  practical  predicament ;  at  another  time,  in  a  sort  of 
spontaneous  striving,  he  is  making  conquest  of  the  future  by 
weaving  images  of  fancy  or  by  action  in  play  or  art;  and  at  yet 
another  time,  he  is  striving  to  encompass  external  fact,  to  find 
the  truth  that  Is  hidden  in  things ;  to  penetrate  into  objective  exist- 
ence as  a  seeker  for  the  worthful,  the  fulfilling,  the  real. 

Baldwin's  own  view  of  assumption  is  given  in  the  statement  that 
by  assumption,  "an  established  recognitive  context,  accepted  for 
what  it  is,  is  also  read  for  what  it  may  become." ''  Assumption 
is  for  him  the  only  way  the  mind  has  of  making  any  advance  upon 
its  present  status,  of  gaining  any  new  truth,  of  enlarging  the 
world  of  reality.  This  schematism  furnishes  the  moving  prin- 
ciple that  enables  cognition  to  go  in  and  possess  the  land.8  It  is 
this  principle  that  gives  unity  to  the  whole  of  his  genetic  logic. 
Urban  corroborates  the  position  of  Baldwin,  and  says  "in  the 
making  of  assumption,  the  act  is  determined'  by  a  subjective 


1  Genetic  Logic;  vol.  II,  p.  381. 
1  Ibid.;  p.  ii. 
f  Ibid.;  p.  44 


50 

factor,  a  demand  arising  from  already  existing  dispositions  and 
interests."  *  Royce  also  regards  assumption  as  the  inner  asserting 
its  rights  as  a  joint  owner  in  the  world  of  experience.  That  the 
mind  thus  actively  takes  a  hand  in  the  weaving  of  life  and  its 
objects,  is  strongly  argued  in  his  book,  "The  Religious  Aspects  of 
Philosophy."  In  the  chapter  on  "Postulates"  (which,  as  we 
shall  see  later,  are  a  species  of  assumption)  Professor  Royce  says 
that  "Postulates  are  voluntary  assumptions  of  a  risk,  for  the  sake 
of  a  higher  end.  .  .  .They  are  deliberate  and  courageous 
volitions."  "The  postulate  says:  'I  dare  be  responsible  for  as- 
suming'." We  all  postulate  that  our  lives  are  worth  the  trouble, 
yet  we  all  know  perfectly  well  that  many  just  such  postulates 
must  in  the  nature  of  things  be  blunders,  but  they  imply  not  blind 
faith,  but  active  faith.  Blind  faith  is  the  ostrich  behind  the  bush ; 
the  postulate  stands  like  the  lion  against  the  hunters.  The  wise 
shall  live  by  postulates."  a  The  pragmatists,  likewise,  emphasize 
(indeed,  over-emphasize)  the  fact  that  assumption  is  a  subjective 
demand.  In  F.  C.  S.  Schiller's  essay  on  "Axioms  as  Postulates," 
there  are  many  passages  like  the  following:  "Theoretic  truths 
are  the  children  of  postulates.  .  .  .Without  purposive  activity 
there  would  be  no  knowledge,  no  order,  no  rational  experience, 
nothing  to  explain,  and  no  means  of  explaining  anything."  "For, 
ever  before  the  eyes  of  him  whose  wisdom  dares  to  postulate, 
will  float  in  clearer  or  obscurer  outline  the  beatific  vision  of  that 
perfect  harmony  of  all  experience  which  he  in  all  his  strenuous 
struggles  is  striving  to  attain.  And  instead  of  immolating  his 
whole  life  to  the  enervating  sophism  that  it  is  all  an  'appearance 
to  be  transcended  by  an  unattainable  reality,'  let  him  hold  rather 
that  there  can  be  for  him  no  reality  but  that  to  which  he  wins 
his  way  through  and  by  means  of  the  appearances  which  are 
its  presage."  *  The  same  aggressiveness  of  spirit  is  seen  in  James' 
essay  on  "The  Will  to  Believe."  It  is  here  said  that  "the  intel- 
lect, even  with  truth  directly  in  its  grasp,  may  have  no  infallible 
signal  for  knowing  whether  it  be  truth  or  no."'  And  so  he 
brings  in  the  "willing  nature" — by  which  is  meant  not  only  such 

1  cf.   C.   H.  Williams:     The   Schematism   in   Baldwin's   Logic;    Philo- 
sophical Review,  Jan,  1910. 

3  Royce:     The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy;  p.  298. 
'  Schiller,  F.  C.  S. :  Personal  Idealism;  p.  121. 

4  James :  The  Will  to  Believe,  etc. ;  p.  16. 


deliberate  volitions  as  may  have  set  up  habits  of  belief  that  we 
cannot  now  escape.  .  .  .but  all  such  factors  of  belief  as  fear 
and  hope,  prejudice  and  passion,  imitation  and  partisanship,  the 
circumstances  of  our  caste  and  set."  *  Then  in  natural  sequence  to 
these  statements  w.e  have  the  following  one :  "It  matters  not  to  an 
empiricist  from  what  quarter  a  hypothesis  may  come  to  him;  he 
may  have  acquired  it  by  fair  means  or  by  foul ;  passion  may  have 
whispered,  or  accident  suggested  it;  but  if  the  total  drift  of 
thinking  continues  to  confirm  it,  that  is  what  he  means  by  its  being 
true." !  Plainly  the  pragmatist  is  ready  to  agree  that  the  sub- 
jective is  a  potent  factor  in  deciding  what  things  shall  be  true. 
But  there  is  yet  further  evidence  for  a  positive,  aggressive,  inner 
control,  which  demands  satisfaction  for  our  interests,  whether 
those  interests  be  the  undifferentiated  interests  of  the  pre-logical 
stage,  when  the  individual  is  trying  to  find  some  ground  that  is 
safe  from  the  flood  of  doubt,  or  whether  they  be  the  individual 
interests  (the  practical,  intellectual  or  aesthetic)  of  the  logical 
mode.  This  further  evidence  is  found  in  Meinong.  In  his  two 
books  on  assumption  ("Annahmen"  and  "Ueber  Annahmen"), 
and  in  Bertrand  Russell's  review  and  interpretation  of  them,  there 
are  passages  that  support  the  view  that  assumption  mediates  a 
goal  in  behalf  of  the  subjective.  Take  for  example  the  following 
(a  translation  by  Russell  from  the  3d  chapter  of  "Ueber  An- 
nahmen"— a  chapter  enumerating  the  most  familiar  instances  of 
assumption)  :  "The  hypothesis  of  mathematical  propositions,  lit- 
erary works  of  art,  children's  pretenses,  lies,  and  the  theories  of 
philosophers,  can  none  of  them  be  understood  without  assump- 
tions. When  an  argument  begins  with  'Let  a  right-angled  tri- 
angle be  given,  having  one  of  its  sides  double  the  other/  we  have 
to  do  with  the  proposition  which  is  not  asserted ;  hence,  we  have 
an  assumption,  and  not  a  judgment.  Scientific  hypotheses  again, 
at  least  in  their  inception,  are  unasserted,  and  afford  instances  of 
assumption.  When  children  pretend,  it  is  quite  plain  that  they 
are  not  taken  in  by  their  own  fancies;  these  fancies  constitute 
assumptions;  and  the  same  applies  to  reading  a  novel.  A  liar 
wishes  to  produce  in  another  belief  in  a  proposition  which  he 
himself  does  not  believe ;  if  he  is  to  be  successful,  he  will  have  to 

*  The  Will  to  Believe,  etc.;  p.  9. 

•  Ibid. ;  p.  17. 


52 

entertain  the  assumption  of  the  proposition  in  question.  And  this 
is  why  liars  tend  to  believe  their  own  lies.    .    .    .A  question  ex- 
presses, if  the  answer  to  it  is  yes  or  no,  the  desire  to  have  an 
assumption  turned  into  the  corresponding  judgment  or  its  op- 
posite.   And  in  all  desire,  since  the  opposition  of  yes  and  no  oc- 
curs in  the  object  of  desire,  we  are  necessarily  concerned  with  an 
assumption;  for  mere  presentation  is  inadequate,  and  the  truth 
of  what  is  desired  is  obviously  no  part  of  desire."  3    Again,  in  the 
fifth  chapter,  which  treats  of  the  psychic  and  its  nature,  as  having 
objects  (Gegenstandlichkeit),  assumption  appears  with  the  same 
peculiar  power  to  project  objects  and  withhold  belief ;  with  the 
same  privilege  of  transcending  presentation ;  of  transcending  the 
thing  of  present  knowledge.    This  chapter  focuses  on  the  question 
as  to  how  presentation  that  is  pure,  and  judgment  that  is  negative, 
can  have  an  object.    A  judgment  that  is  true  provokes  no  question 
as  to  its  object;  because  the  very  fact  that  it  is  a  true  judgment 
settles  the  matter ;  it  has  an  object,  either  an  existing  or  a  subsist- 
ing object.    But  whether  the  judgment  is  a  true  negative  or  a  false 
affirmative,  we  come  upon  a  difficulty.    These  judgments  cannot 
have  the  objects  they  would  have  if  true  and  affirmative.     Such 
judgments,  it  would  seem,  must  then  fall  back  upon  presentation 
for  their  objects.     But  presentation  usually  does  not  have  an 
object;  in  fact,  pure  presentation  has  only  the  capacity  for  an 
object,  as  in  the  case  of  the  memory  of  a  melody,  one  does  not 
have  the  melody.     "When,  therefore,  we  seem  to  perceive  direc- 
tion to  an  object,  this  arises  through  the  presence  of  an  affirmative 
assumption;  the  object  is  presented  'as  if  it  were  real'."     Still 
again,  this  same  interpretation  of  assumption  is  implied  by  Mei- 
nong  in  his  "Annahmen,"  where  he  considers  the  difference  be- 
tween assumption  and  judgment  to  be  a  matter  only  of  attitude  to- 
ward the  "objective."    In  this  connection  Russell  translates  Mei- 
nong  as  pointing  out  that  "Judgment  has  two  elements:  (a)  con- 
viction and  (b)  affirmation,  or  denial ;  and  that  in  a  large  class  of 
common  facts,  which  are  called  assumptions,  the  second  occurs 
without  the  first.2    We  find  this  same  thought  in  "Ueber  Annah- 
men,"  it  being  there  argued  that  assumption  is  more  than  mere 


1  Mind:    New  Series;   vol.  XIII,  p.  34Q. 

2  Loc.  cit.  above;  p.  206. 


53 

presentation  and  less  than  judgment ;  that  it  holds  a  sort  of  middle 
ground  between  judgment  and  presentation."  J 

In  the  light  of  the  foregoing  views,  assumption  may  be  sum- 
marized somewhat  as  follows :  It  is  the  intrinsic  power  the 
mind  has  of  leading  experience  into  larger  fields  of  meaning, 
by  expanding  the  "is"  into  the  "may-be ;"  of  discounting  the  future 
to  meet  present  wants  and  interests.  But  it  is  important  to  go  yet 
farther  into  the  subject  of  assumption,  to  take  account  indeed  of 
distinctions  made  within  the  meaning  itself — distinctions  discov- 
ered by  the  application  of  the  genetic  method  to  consciousness. 
In  recent  psychological  literature  on  the  cognitive  consciousness, 
one  is  frequently  meeting  with  such  terms  as  "pre-discursive" 
and  "post-discursive ;"  "pre- judgmental"  and  "post- judgmental ;" 
"pre-logical"  and  "post-"  or  "hyper-logical."  It  is  upon  this 
division  as  a  basis  that  the  distinction  in  assumption  rests.  We 
have  seen  the  credulous  reality-feeling  and  unthinking  presump- 
tion were  saved  from  destroying  doubt  and  led  away  toward  the 
high  ground  of  logical  conviction  and  judgment.  But 
with  judgment  reached,  all  doubt  does  not  cease.  Consciousness 
never  attains  such  a  degree  of  present  sufficiency  that  it  has  no 
need  of  assumption  to  bridge  it  over  some  intercepting  doubt  or 
want.  According  to  this  view,  which  is  the  one  maintained  by 
Baldwin  in  his  Genetic  Logic,  and  by  W.  M.  Urban  in  his  book 
on  Valuation,  there  are  two  kinds  of  assumption,  named  in  order 
of  appearance,  lower  assumption  and  higher  assumption ;  or,  just 
assumption  and  postulation.  Baldwin  explains  the  two  meanings 
as  follows:  "Over  against  this  (presumption),  also  in  the  prelog- 
ical  modes,  there  is,  however,  the  contrasted  attitude  toward  what 
is  not  presumed  but  assumed — made  schematic  for  further  deter- 
mination. The  'assumption'  is  the  use  of  a  meaning  in  a  control 
or  with  a  reference  that  is  not  yet  established,  not  yet  presump- 
tion. When  a  child,  for  example,  cries  for  an  object  in  the 
next  room,  he  'presumes'  its  existence  and  availabilitly  in  the 
world  of  his  practical  interests;  but  when  he  goes  through  the 
process  of  'feeding  his  toy  dog,'  he  'assumes'  a  sphere  that  he 
does  not  regularly  'presume.' '  "In  the  logical  mode,  the  exist- 
ence-marks harden  into  a  dualism  of  spheres  (mind  and  body), 
and  the  intent  of  existence  or  control  becomes  itself  a  separable 


Meinong:  Ueber  Annahmen ;  p.  61. 


54 

or  predicable  meaning.  And  this  existence,  or  reality-meaning, 
may  be  again  entertained  in  two  ways :  it  may  be  specifically 
asserted  in  a  judgment  of  existence,  or  taken  for  granted  as 
something  capable  of  such  assertion;  or  it  may  be  set  up  hypo- 
thetically  and  schematically.  These  two  attitudes  are  for  the 
logical  mode  what  the  'presumption'  and  the  'assumption'  are 
for  the  pre-logical."  *  Urban  writes,  corroborating  Baldwin,  as 
follows :  "Assumption  as  a  cognitive  attitude  has  two  meanings. 
According  to  its  first  meaning  it  is  an  acceptance,  a  taking  as 
existent  of  an  object  when  there  is  an  underlying  sense  of  the 
possibility  of  its  being  non-existent.  In  this  sense,  it  is  a  half-way 
stage  between  the  primitive  presumption  of  reality,  and  the 
existential  judgment.  In  this  sense  also  it  is  a  secondary  move- 
ment or  act  of  cognition,  within  a  developing  sphere  of  reality, 
bounded  by  the  primitive  presumption  of  reality,  and  the  exist- 
ential judgment,  affirmative  or  negative.  From  the  point  of  view 
of  conation,  it  is  an  act  determined  by  the  momentum  of  the 
subjective  disposition  or  interest.  In  its  second  meaning,  it  is  not 
pre- judgmental,  but  post- judgmental ;  it  presupposed  dispositions 
created  by  acts  of  judgment,  and  is  derived  from  the  judgment- 
attitude."  * 

Such  a  distinction  within  assumption  makes  it  all  the  more 
evident  that  this  activity  is  the  moving  principle  in  mental  develop- 
ment and  in  the  growth  of  experience;  it  is  the  function  of 
growth  in  all  modes  of  cognition.  Assumption  is  the  active 
nature  or  inner  control  which  belief  must  satisfy  when  it  comes. 
Until  then,  assumption  remains  quasi-belief — i.  e.,  it  acts  towards 
the  object  as  if  it  were  real. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Belief  and  Judgment. 

In  the  historical  and  psychological  divisions  of  this  discussion 
it  was  found  that  belief  is  in  intimate  and  essential  relation  to 
the  cognition  of  reality,  and  to  the  active  disposition.  That  is  to 
say,  belief,  whether  considered  from  a  philosophical  or  a  psycho- 
logical point  of  view,  always  appears  to  be  rooted  in  a  reference 
to  reality,  and  at  the  same  time  to  take  its  life  from  the  inner 

1  Baldwin :  Genetic  Logic ;  vol.  II,  p.  12. 

1  Urban:  Valuation:  Its  Nature  and  Laws;  p.  48. 


55 

accommodating  and  asserting  powers  of  our  nature.  Thus  at  the 
end  of  Chapters  I  and  II  our  investigation  brought  us  to  this 
conclusion:  objectively  taken,  belief  means  belief  in  something- 
something  that  is  real ;  subjectively  taken,  it  means  an  activity  that 
expresses  and  satisfies  the  whole  self.  And  now,  since  in  the 
genetic  study  we  have  returned  to  this  subject,  we  must  enter 
again  upon  its  consideration.  It  is  a  question  this  time  of  find- 
ing whether  belief,  when  regarded  from  a  genetic  and  epistemo- 
logical  point  of  view,  has  the  same  character  as  when  regarded 
from  a  psychological  point  of  view ;  whether,  that  is,  we  shall  con- 
tinue to  find  belief  in  essential  conjunction  with  the  cognitive  and 
the  active  phases  of  our  nature. 

Assumption  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  vital  factor  in  the  growth 
of  consciousness;  in  fact,  it  is  a  question  whether,  without  it, 
life  would  not  be  static  and  stagnant.  It  seems  that  without  as- 
sumption thought  would  be  shut  in  by  an  impassable  wall — the 
wall  of  habit ;  with  it,  thought  can  push  out  into  new  experience, 
and  thus  satisfy  the  demands  of  positive  interests — interests 
that  of  their  own  nature  seek  satisfaction  in  objects  or  ends. 
Assumption  is  the  genetic  interpretation  of  Professor  Royce's 
statement  that  "at  every  moment,  we  are  not  merely  receiving, 
attending,  recognizing,  but  we  are  constructing.  *  Assumption  is 
the  individual  in  action ;  productive,  cognitive  action ;  the  individ- 
ual, seeking  a  clearer  insight  into  nature,  climbing  to  a  higher 
ground  of  outlook,  infusing  new  meaning  into  life.  Assumption 
is  the  spontaneous,  initiative  energy  of  conscious  life,  expressing 
itself  through  cognition.  But  in  addition  to  this,  it  should  be 
noted  that  its  object  is  tentative.  When  making  an  assumption, 
the  individual  is  well  aware  that  the  assumed  object  may  fail  to 
fit  the  conditions  that  test  its  reality;  that  he  may  have  chosen 
the  wrong  alternative.  There  is  no  taking  for  granted  here  as 
there  was  in  "presumption."  Belief  is  suspended.  But  suspended 
for  what  reason?  For  the  reason  simply  that  it  has  not  found  a 
co-efficient  that  will  satisfy  the  demands  of  reality.  And  when- 
ever, through  the  creative  function  of  assumption,  consciousness 
succeeds  in  setting  up  an  object  that  gains  objective  sanction, 
all  will  be  well,  and  belief  will  no  longer  hold  back,  but  go  forth 
in  unreserved  and  final  indorsement  of  that  object  as  real ;  the  two 

1  Royce :    Religious  Aspects  of  Philosophy ;   p.  321. 


controls — that  of  the  inner  and  that  of  the  outer,  will  be  satisfied 
in  a  mutual  ownership. 

But  what  is  meant  by  saying  that  quasi-belief  passes  into  be- 
lief proper  when  the  schematic  object  of  assumption  wins  the 
approval  of  the  objective?  Does  it  mean  that  assumption  has 
become  judgment?  If  judgment  has  reference  to  existence  or 
reality,  and  is  not  mere  ideas  that  have  their  truth  in  a  sort  of 
a  priori  consistency,  and  if  it  is  a  construction  that  mediates  the 
Self,  then  the  coming  of  belief  does  mean  the  coming  of  judg- 
ment, and  from  this  conclusion  it  follows  that,  if  all  judgment  is 
existential,  and  at  the  same  time  incorporates  our  evaluating 
personal  nature,  then  judgment  is  belief,  which  is  our  thesis. 

Section  I:   Direct  Evidence. 
(A)  From  objective  point  of  view. 

From  a  genetic  and  epistemological  point  of  view,  Baldwin 
finds  that  judgment  in  every  instance  takes  cognizance,  explicitly 
or  implicitly,  of  existence;  and  Urban  in  his  book,  "Valuation: 
Its  Nature  and  Laws,"  accepts  and  utilizes  Baldwin's  general 
conclusions.  Meinong,  by  a  semi-genetic  and  epistemological  in- 
vestigation of  experience,  comes  likewise  to  the  conclusion  that 
"judgment  is  transcendent."  Bradley,  although  approaching  the 
subject  from  a  yet  different  side — the  logical — comes  to  maintain 
that  all  judgment  is  in  the  end  existential.  And  again,  from  the 
psychological  point  of  view,  we  have  Brentano  strongly  affirming 
the  same  fact. 

To  appreciate  fully  the  force  of  Baldwin's  argument  (Genetic 
Logic,  Vols.  I  and  II)  for  the  existential  nature  of  judgment,  it 
is  necessary  to  take  account  of  assumption  at  its  two  different 
levels  of  cognitive  progression ;  to  take  account  both  of  assump- 
tion and  postulation  (these  terms  being  understood  as  meaning, 
respectively,  lower  and  higher  assumption).  Schematism  is  the 
general  term  which  includes  both  meanings.  Assumption  as  se- 
rious experimentation  with  psychic  objects — that  is,  as  instru- 
mental knowledge,  grows  out  of  the  semblant  or  play  conscious- 
ness. "In  experimentation,  play  merges  into  earnest,  and  through 
its  demand  for  control,  issues  in  adjustment  and  discovery." ' 


1  Genetic  Logic;   vol.  II,  pp.  119  ff. 


57 

Play,  or  semblance  (or  rather,  earliest  semblance,  for  art  too  is 
semblance)  is  described  as  a  "mode  of  reconciliation  and  merg- 
ing of  two  sorts  of  control."  It  is  neither  inner  nor  outer  control 
exclusively ;  that  is,  the  play  object  is  neither  a  sense-object  nor  a 
fancy-object,  but  an  object  swinging  between  and  partaking  of 
the  nature  of  both.  It  is  in  this  power  of  the  mind  to  semble — 
to  construct  an  object  partly  free  from  the  old  controls  of  sense 
and  fancy — that  Baldwin  finds  the  first  movements  of  that  process 
which  is  to  prove  of  such  "wide-reaching  importance"  to  the 
mind  in  its  career ;  the  process,  namely,  of  experimentation.  Ex- 
perimentation at  this  stage,  however,  does  not  issue  in  anything 
that  the  individual  can  indorse  and  believe;  it  here  reaches  no 
final  conclusion.  The  semblant  object  when  tested  simply  be- 
comes either  a  sense-object  or  a  fancy-object;  with  the  result, 
though,  that  "the  great  distinction  between  the  inner  and  the 
outer  realms  is  extended  and  made  more  definite."  But  conscious- 
ness has  a  long  course  to  run  before  reaching  that  stage  in  cogni- 
tive development  in  which  experimentation  eventuates  in  the 
experience  of  an  ordered  system  of  objects  individuated  as  par- 
ticulars under  a  general,  and  given  meanings  "necessary"  and 
"without  exception." 

To  attain  such  experience  or  objective  content,  semblance  oper- 
ates in  yet  another  way  than  by  actual  experimentation;  that  is, 
by  the  process  called  "sembling;"  what  Lipp  calls  "Einfuhlung." 
This  character  of  the  semblant  object,  which  is  implicated  in  the 
inner  nature  of  the  entire  construction,  is  especially  germinal  to  re- 
flection. By  this  "innocent  looking  process,"  an  object  has  a 
greater  or  less  degree  of  subjective  control  attributed  to  it.  This 
"process  implies  that  all  the  objects  so  treated  are  already  mate- 
rials of  the  inner  life  as  such.  .  .It  implies  that  any  material 
of  the  inner  life  may  be  so  treated.  .  . It  means  finally  that  any 
such  bit  of  'sembled/  of  'semblable,  psychic  stuff  has  its  own  op- 
posed meanings;  on  the  one  hand,  that  of  the  object  pure  and 
simple,  existing  under  the  co-efficient  reinstated  by  the  semblance ; 
and  on  the  other,  that  of  a  self-determined  whole,  free  from  these 
co-efficients  so  long  as  it  itself  does  not  terminate  its  freedom, 
and  fulfilling  its  role  simply  by  being  in  this  vibrating  semblant 
mode.  .  .  This  mode  of  construction,  moreover,  constitutes  any 
content  in  turn,  either  subject  or  object.  .  .In  so  far  as  it  (the 


58 

content)  is  itself  held  in  control  by  'outer'  co-efficients  of  this 
sort  or  that,  in  so  far  it  is  set  up  as  a  psychic  object;  but  whenever 
in  turn  it  is  used  as  inner  means  of  control  to  other  contents, 
it  has  a  sembled  inner  life  of  its  own  and  becomes  subject.  This  is 
the  rudiment,  or  first  suggestion,  of  that  higher  mode — Reflec- 
tion/' :  Thus  we  see  the  importance  of  sembling.  In  reflection 
the  inner  life  of  the  different  contents  that  are  their  own  sub- 
jects is  pooled  in  one  inner  control — the  Subject,  or  Ego.  And 
that  part  of  the  content  which  was  held  in  control  by  outer  co- 
efficients of  "this  sort  or  that"  is  still  under  co-efficients  of  con- 
trol, now  existence-control,  as  psychic  objects.  But  all  these 
objects  are  of  inner  experience — are  objects  of  thought — in  short, 
are  ideas. 

This  examination  of  the  outer  (experimental)  and  inner 
(sembling)  nature  of  the  play-mode  reveals  clearly  the  character 
and  significance  of  assumption,  and  at  the  same  time  opens  the 
way  for  a  rapid  advance  to  the  judgment-mode.  Play  experiment- 
ation, developing  into  serious  experimentation  (under  the  mo- 
tive furnished  by  the  problems  set  by  the  body  in  taking  an  am- 
biguous position  in  experience  and  refusing  to  be  permanently 
either  inner  or  outer,  either  internal  or  external),  comes  soon 
through  the  pressure  of  negative  experience — though  unreality- 
feeling  which  is  the  "genetic  impulse"  to  further  determination — 
to  the  stage  of  disjunctive  or  alternative  meanings — this  or  that.1 
The  early  distinction  of  the  hypothetical  or  assumptive  meaning 
thus  approaches  the  true  general,  for  the  alternative  meaning  is  a 
stage  in  the  passing  of  a  semblant  schema  into  a  general  concept. 
"The  alternative  expectation  has  so  determined  experience  that  the 
issue  will  be  one  of  the  two!'  The  negative  meaning  has  thus 
passed  from  the  privation  of  all  other  to  the  experimental  inclu- 
sion of  this  other.  With  the  next  movement  of  cognitive  growth, 
the  object  ceases  to  be  a  mere  make-up  that  only  subsists;*  it 
becomes  instead  a  real,  self-sufficient  object.  By  individuation,  the 
object  is  transferred  from  the  group  that  says  other  cases  might 
have  done,  to  the  class  that  says  what  other  cases  might  have  done ;' 

1  Genetic  Logic;   vol.  II,  p.  124. 

*  Ibid. ;  p.  217. 

1  Genetic  Logic;  vol.  II,  p.   167. 

4  Baldwin :    Genetic  Logic ;    vol.  II,  p.  221. 


59 

the  semblant  object,  in  short,  hardens  into  a  meaning  that  is  nec- 
essary and  without  exception,  and  is  "passed  back  into  the  sphere 
of  existence  of  the  co-efficients  of  actual  fact  and  external  con- 
trol." Of  this  outcome  of  assumption  Baldwin  writes  as  follows : 
"The  uncertainty  which  made  its  (the  assumptive  object's)  mean- 
ing hypothetical,  now  disappears,  therefore,  and  a  positive  con- 
struction stands  firm,  no  longer  open  to  question.  The  meaning 
of  definiteness  and  relation  attaches  to  the  finished,  made-up 
thing,  of  which  there  is  no  further  event.  The  control,  now  ex- 
ternal, has  issued  once  for  all  in  this  meaning  and  no  other.  The 
note  has  been  converted  into  the  gold  coin  of  existence,  which  is 
to  be  circulated  with  a  value  that  is  once  for  all  established." ' 

With  the  discovery  of  existence  and  judgment,  the  growing 
world  of  experience  seems  to  end  in  a  fixed  and  final  reality ;  but 
this  is  only  in  seeming,  for  the  schematic  development  of  exist- 
ence (now  of  more  existence)  still  goes  on.  With  the  coming 
of  judgment,  assumption  did  not  disappear  by  being  extinguished, 
but  by  being  transformed  into  a  process  of  a  higher  nature ;  that 
is,  into  postulation.  In  postulation,  theoretical  interest  finds  it- 
self, and  consciously  seeks  satisfaction  by  enlarging  the  bound- 
aries of  experience.  As  it  was  the  function  of  assumption  to  bring 
determination  into  an  indeterminate  world,  so  it  is  the  function 
of  postulation,  using  the  chart  thus  defined  by  assumption,  to 
make  definite,  foreplanned  prospecting  trips  beyond  the  bounds  of 
known  experience.  Postulation  that  proves  true,  ends  in  presup- 
posed existence — existence  which  may  then  be  made  explicit  in  an 
existential  judgment.  That  postulation  thus  eventuates  if  it 
enters  the  sphere  of  judgment  is  shown  by  the  following  example : 
"When  Columbus  sailed  westward,  he  postulated  a  world  in  which 
certain  astronomical  and  geographical  relations  held.  Luckily,  he 
found  a  patron  willing  to  postulate  it  with  him.  Since  he  dis- 
covered it,  however,  all  sailors  presuppose  the  world  he  postu- 
lated." f 

Meinong's  system  of  epistemology,  while  very  difficult  of  com- 
prehension in  detail,  does  stand  out  in  some  of  its  larger  features 
rather  clearly.  Judgment,  he  evidently  holds,  means  more  than 
the  mere  idea  of  which  it  is  composed ;  it  has  not  simply  an  object 

1  Baldwin:    Genetic  Logic;    vol.  II,  p.  224. 
1  Ibid.;   p.  no. 


6o 


(using  the  author's  terminology)  ;  it  includes  also  an  "objective;'' 
that  is,  a  transcendental  reference  to  something  which  is  known — 
this,  of  course,  provided  the  judgment  be  true.  In  Chapter  VI, 
Section  34,  which  treats  of  the  "thetic  and  synthetic"  function 
of  judgment  and  assumption,  Meinong  criticises  Brentano's  effort 
to  reduce  all  judgment  to  the  existential,  and  argues  that  besides 
the  "thetic"  judgment  there  is  also  a  "synthetic"  judgment.  But 
in  this  criticism  he  does  not  deny  the  existential  import  of  judg- 
ment. On  the  contrary,  he  refers  transcendence  to  both  types ; 
the  transcendence  of  the  former  he  calls  absolute  transcendence ; 
and  that  of  the  latter,  relative  transcendence,  meaning  by  the  ad- 
jective relative,  that  through  such  a  recognition  neither  term  of  a 
synthetic  judgment  is  taken  for  itself  alone,  but  each  only  relative 
to  the  other.  "That  sorrow  is  a  feeling"  has  as  much  the  objective 
reference  (Gerichetsein)  as  does  "there  is  sorrow."1 

That  Meinong  holds  to  the  existence-import  of  judgment 
seems  to  be  the  opinion  also  of  Bertrand  Russell  (in  the  articles 
already  mentioned)  and  of  Urban  (Valuation).  Russell  inter- 
prets Meinong  as  follows :  "In  fact,  relations,  attributes  and  all 
complexes  require  objectives,  which  occur  everywhere  except  in 
the  simple,  or  speaking  not  quite  precisely,  in  cases  of  complete 
intuitiveness  and  mere  presentation.  It  is  always  Objectives — i.  e., 
that  something  .should  exist  or  should  not  exist,  that  we  desire, 
and  to  which  we  attach  value." ''  Urban's  interpretation  is,  of 
course,  from  the  side  of  worth,  but  it  is  especially  in  point  on 
account  of  the  fact  that  he  finds  Meinong  standing  on  about  the 
same  judgmental  basis  with  himself;  which  is,  as  was  indicated 
above,  an  existential  basis.  Worth  for  both  rests  upon  some 
universe  of  reality,  which  is  presupposed  in  all  judgments  that 
assert  existence,  either  categorically,  hypothetically,  or  disjunc- 
tively." ' 

The  positions  of  Bradley  and  Brentano  with  regard  to  the  exist- 
ence-import of  judgment,  are  too  well  known  to  need  more  than 
mere  mention.  For  Bradley,  the  coming  of  ideas  that  exist  only 
as  they  mean  something  else,  marks  rather  a  decline  in  experience 


1  Meinong:   Ueber  Annahmen;   p. 
J  Urban:   Valuation;  p.  352. 
*  Ibid. ;   p.  42. 


146. 


6i 

than  a  rise.  Those  ideas,  in  fact,  signify  that  consciousness  has 
fallen  from  its  first  estate  of  immediate  intuition  of  reality,  and  is 
attempting  to  gain  what  it  lost.  Ideas,  Bradley  declares,  are 
themselves  no  part  of  reality ;  but  they  qualify,  mean,  symbolize, 
reality;  and  to  expect  to  find  reality  in  them  or  through  them  is 
to  meet  the  same  disappointment  that  Tantalus  met  in  the  ancient 
fable,  for  reality  recedes  before  our  ideas,  just  as  the  water  from 
his  touch.  The  subject  of  every  judgment  is  reality,  which  is 
individual  and  timeless,  and  which,  accordingly,  no  judgment  ever 
expresses,  but  only  qualifies. 

This  notion,  that  judgment  cannot  get  down  to  true  being,  that 
it  is  neither  image  nor  fact,  but  mutilated  content,  receives 
further  emphasis  from  his  treatment  of  those  peculiar  ideas,  the 
"real"  and  the  "this."  'The  idea  of  reality,  like  the  reality  of 
'this'  is  not,"  Bradley  states,  "an  ordinary  symbolic  content,  to  be 
used  without  any  regard  to  its  existence."  3  These  ideas  are  of 
facts  immediately  present  to  sense;  they  are  elements  in  actual 
existence,  which  we  encounter  directly,  and  cannot  in  judgment 
be  removed  from  this  and  transferred  to  another  reality.  In  these 
instances  the  "particular"  is  present  in  fact,  and  it  is  idle  to  have 
an  idea  of  it.  This  "particular"  of  presentation — the  "real," 
judgment,  being  discursive,  cannot  contain,  and  it  must  therefore 
look  beyond  itself  for  the  existence  it  asserts. 

Brentano  declares  for  the  existential  reference  of  judgment  on 
the  grounds  of  a  fundamental  distinction  between  presentation 
and  judgment.  They  are,  he  says,  intrinsically  different  classes 
of  psychic  phenomena.  "Nothing,  indeed,  is  judged,  which  is  not 
presented,  but  we  maintain  that,  while  the  object  of  a  presenta- 
tion becomes  object  of  an  acknowledging  or  rejecting  judgment, 
consciousness  steps  into  a  completely  new  kind  of  relation  to  it. 
It  is  then  doubly  taken  up  in  consciousness  as  presented  and  as 
held  for  true  or  as  denied." '" 

This  new  relation  that  consciousness  takes  to  the  object  of  pre- 
sentation when  it  becomes  the  object  of  judgment,  Brentano  ex- 
plains as  being  a  matter  of  the  existence  or  non-existence  of  an 
object.  All  judgment  has  just  this  difference  from  presentation, 


1  Bradley :   Logic ;   p.  80. 

2  Brentano  :    Psychologic ;    p.  266. 


62 

for  in  no  other  respect — neither  in  intensity  nor  kind  of  object, 
is  there  any  difference  in  these  two  phenomena.  Judgment  is 
not  distinguished  from  presentation  by  a  relational  character ;  it  is 
an  assertion  or  denial  of  existence.  In  agreement  with  Bradley, 
he  says  that  judgment  is  a  single  idea.  This  position  argued 
through  for  the  existential  proposition,  holds  in  natural  course  for 
the  categorical  and  hypothetical  propositions,  for  the  latter  are 
reducible  to  the  former. 

(B)  From  the  subjective  point  of  view. 

From  the  objective  side  there  is  growing  evidence  that  belief 
expresses  itself  as  judgment.  But  what  of  the  evidence  from  the 
subjective  side?  Does  it  also  show  that  judgment  is  more  than 
content;  that  it  is  also  control?  That  there  is  no  "that"  which 
is  not  also  a  "what;"  that  "is"  always  means  "exists?"  If  a 
thing,  to  exist,  must  exist  somewhere,  necessarily  it  must  exist  for 
somebody.  Existence  implies  an  inner  control.  But  the  question 
here  is  whether  there  is  direct  evidence  that  judgment  contains 
that  inner  force  which  seems  to  be  one  of  the  essential  conditions 
of  being. 

That  the  inner  active  nature  of  the  individual  must  not  be 
counted  a  zero,  but  a  real  factor,  in  the  production  of  reality,  has 
become  in  recent  literature  a  most  patent  fact.  To  dissuade  the 
mind  of  its  old-time  bias  for  abstract,  changeless  reality,  and  to 
implant  instead  a  conception  of  reality  that  is  concrete,  living, 
growing;  that  includes  the  purposes,  interests  and  activities  of 
persons,  is  the  central  motive  in  the  pragmatic  regime.  Reality, 
the  pragmatists  say,  is  in  us,  and  we  are  in  it,  and  all  is  a  flux 
of  experience.  "Things  are  surcharged  valuations,  and  conscious- 
ness is  ways  and  ends  of  believing  and  disbelieving." '  Brute 
fact  could  not  be  real  without  consciousness,  any  more  than 
consciousness  could  be  real  without  brute  fact.  "The  world  has 
meaning  only  as  somebody's,  just  as  a  cake  is  had  only  by  the 
eating  of  it."  Reality  is  not  something  in  a  ready-made,  fixed 
and  finished  form,  which  mind  must  keep  "hands  off"  and  judge 
only  at  a  distance;  but  reality  is  a  flux,  and  "specific  conscious 
beings exercise  influence  upon  its  character  and  existence."  ! 

1  Dewey:    Beliefs  and  Realities:    Presidential  Address,  1895;    p.  114. 
8  Ibid. 


63 

The  flux  has  an  inner  life  with  which  concepts  quite  fail  to 
connect  us.1 

Worth-theory  vies  with  pragmatism  in  putting  emphasis  upon 
the  potency  of  the  conative  in  determining  reality.  Consider  for 
a  moment  what  Urban  says  in  his  chapter  on  "Valuation  and 
Evaluation"  in  comparing  the  meanings  of  truth  and  value,  or  of 
existence  and  reality.  These  meanings,  he  concludes,  have  a 
"relative  indifference"  to  each  other;  there  is  "merely  a  partial 
identity  of  normative  with  factual  and  truth  objectivity."  Truth 
and  value  seem  to  be  not  identical;  value  judgments  do  not 
throughout  have  presuppositions  that  can  be  expressed  in  retro- 
spective and  logical  terms.  Just  as  on  the  plane  of  scientific 
thought  the  principle  of  psycho-physical  parallelism  forbids  the 
reduction  of  the  psychical  to  the  physical  or  the  physical  to  the 
psychical,  so  also  on  the  plane  of  the  axiological,  the  principle 
of  relative  indifference  forbids  our  reducing  all  values  to  factual 
and  truth  objectivity;  all  worth  experiences  to  mere  effects  of 
social  processes  or  means  to  social  ends.2 

The  insufficiency  of  the  concept  of  existence  and  truth  to 
exhaust  all  worth  experience,  indicates  an  intrinsic  nature  that 
will  not  be  mastered  by  thought  as  content,  but  masters  thought 
as  control.  In  this  nature  originate  the  ever-widening  circles  of 
growth  that  expand  into  increased  experience  and  reality;  and 
though  it  cannot  incorporate  this  objective  expanse  into  itself, 
yet  it  is  not  lost  in  the  expanse,  but  remains  the  source  of  the 
creative  interests  that  make  impossible  a  stagnant  world;  it  is 
the  "alogical,"  the  "center  of  activity,"  and  the  source  of  experi- 
mentation. This  is  the  principle  that  even  in  the  most  abstract 
and  formal  reasoning,  sustains  reflection  as  its  presupposition.1 

Whether,  then,  we  approach  judgment  from  the  objective  side 
or  the  subjective,  it  is  found  to  be  more  than  mere  content — it 
has  controls  in  reality  to  which  it  is  anchored  as  a  mediating 
context.  Judgment  mediates  the  real  both  as  objective  reference  r] 
and  as  personal  satisfaction.  But  these  are  the  marks  we  found 
attaching  to  belief  as  its  accepted  criteria.  If,  therefore,  we  cor- 
rectly interpret  the  different  writers  to  whom  we  refer,  and  make 

1  James:     Pluralistic  Universe;  p.  246. 

1  Urban:  Valuation,  etc.;  p.  424. 

"  Baldwin :  Genetic  Logic ;  vol.  II,  p.  328. 


64 

correct  deductions  from  these  different  interpretations,  then,  it 
must  be  concluded  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  judgment,  whatever 
else  it  may  mean,  means  belief.  But  there  are  two  facts  that  have  a 
special  signification  in  substantiating  this  view  of  judgment. 
There  is,  first,  the  question  of  bare  denial,  and  secondly,  there  is 
the  question  of  whether  pragmatism,  denying  retrospective 
thought,  and  allowing  only  prospective  or  instrumental  thought, 
ever  obtains  real  belief. 

Section  II:  Indirect  Evidence. 
(A)  Interpretation  of  Negative. 

Bradley  declares  that  a  judgment  which  is  merely  a  negation  of 
an  affirmative,  is  a  judgment  without  a  quality ;  it  in  no  way 
qualifies  reality.  But  Keynes  and  Sigwart  take  an  opposite  view, 
and  maintain  the  utility  of  such  a  judgment.  A  judgment  of  bare 
negation  is,  according  to  their  explanation,  a  judgment  that  has 
its  ground  of  denial,  not  in  opposition,  but  in  a  deficiency.  But 
how  can  there  be  denial  except  through  the  contrary?  This  is 
an  old  question,  with  a  big  history.  Our  interest,  however,  is 
simply  to  contrast  in  a  brief  way  the  nature  of  denial  that  is 
based  upon  judgment-belief  with  bare  denial,  which  is  based  upon 
formal  judgment.  Several  examples  of  a  negative  judgment 
of  efficiency  are  offered  by  these  writers.  It  suffices  to  criticise 
but  one  of  them,  that  of  Keynes,  where  he  imagines  a  search  for 
a  man  supposed  to  be  on  a  certain  train  to  have  ended  finally  with 
the  discovery  that  he  was  not  there.  "I  have  arrived  at  the 
conclusion  that  a  man  did  not  start  by  a  given  train,  because  I 
searched  the  train  through  before  its  departure,"  he  says,  "and  did 
not  find  him  there."  "I  have  gained  no  positive  knowledge  of  the 
whereabouts  of  the  man  in  question  (by  the  case  of  bare  denial), 
but  it  certainly  cannot  be  seriously  maintained  that  the  denial  is 
meaningless  or  useless,  say  to  a  detective."  ]  But  would  not  a 
detective,  it  may  be  asked,  in  searching  for  a  man,  set  up  some 
bounds  to  his  search?  He  surely  would  not  search  without  some 
alternative  or  alternatives  in  mind,  which  would  profit  by  the 
denial.  If  the  man  is  not  on  that  train,  he  has  taken  to  the  woods, 
is  being  harbored  by  some  friend,  etc.  This  is  about  what  would 
be  the  thoughts  of  a  real  detective  in  such  circumstances.  He 

1  Keynes:    Formal  Logic;    p.  123. 


65 

would,  in  other  words,  presuppose  a  larger  sphere  of  belief,  and 
the  negative  would  issue  only  as  it  took  impulse  from  a  positive 
ambition  to  find  which  of  the  possible  alternatives  in  the  sphere 
which  they  altogether  exhaust,  is  true.  With  judgment,  meaning 
the  active  espousal  of  reality,  i.  e.,  belief,  the  bare  negative  would 
be  meaningless,  and  that  because  such  judgment  would  refer  to 
universes  of  reality  that  are  real  existence  spheres,  and  would  be 
necessarily  an  expression  of  some  interest.  H.  W.  B.  Joseph,  in 
"an  introduction  to  Logis  (p.  161),"  maintaining  the  existential 
view  of  judgment,  states  that  there  is  always  a  positive  character 
as  the  ground  of  negation. 

(B)  Argument  from  Pragmatism. 

To  come  now  to  the  problem  whether  pragmatism  is  equally 
immature  in  belief  and  judgment.  It  is  a  fact  of  common  knowl- 
edge that  the  pragmatists  do  not  limit  the  belief-function  to  ac- 
quiescence. Take  for  example  James  in  his  "Will  to  Believe," 
and  Dewey  in  his  Presidential  address  (1905),  "Beliefs  and 
Realities."  In  the  first,  we  read  that  there  are  "passional  ten- 
dencies and  volitions  which  run  before,  and  others  which  come 
after  belief ;  and  it  is  only  the  latter  that  are  too  late  for  the 
fair ;  and  they  are  not  too  late  when  the  previous  passional  work 
has  been  already  in  their  own  direction."  An  hypothesis  that  is 
living,  forced  and  momentous,  we  read  again,  means  "willingness 
to  act,"  and  this  James  declares  to  mean  belief,  for  "there  is 
always  believing  tendency  where  there  is  willingness  to  act."  Be- 
lief is,  in  fact,  but  the  backing  of  an  hypothesis  against  the 
field,"  because  "no  bell  in  us  tolls  to  tell  us  for  certain  what  truths 
are  in  our  grasp."  Dewey  is  in  agreement  with  these  expressions 
of  James,  and  says  that  "beliefs  are  willful ;"  are  "adventurous ;" 
are  "working  hypotheses." 

If  we  turn  to  the  pragmatic  theory  of  judgment,  do  we  not  find 
this  same  hypothetical  character?  Judgment  is  prospective;  in- 
strumental. It  is  inquiry.  Thought  as  logical  process  has  truth 
and  validity  only  as  a  mediating  function ;  only,  that  is,  as  it 
stretches  forward  to  some  goal.  And  this  means  that  truth  and 
validity  never  are,  but  are  to  be,  realized.  Indeed,  what  place 
for  the  "will  to  believe"  is  there  in  thought  unless  the  thought  be 
schematic  and  experimental ;  unless,  that  is,  it  has  its  object  still 


66 

amenable  to  further  manipulation  by  subjective  choice?  If 
thought  should  pass  from  the  plastic  state  of  "tentative,  pros- 
pective plan  into  the  crystallized  state  of  objective,  retrospective 
fact,"  it  would  be  with  the  result,  certainly,  of  making  the  will  to 
believe  a  "fifth  wheel  to  the  coach,"  for  in  that  event  belief  would 
be  no  longer  a  matter  of  taste  and  privative  choice,  but  of  ac- 
quiescing in  what  has  been  found  to  hold  finally  in  the  nature 
of  things,  and  what  has  taken  a  set  beyond  the  power  of  will  or 
wish  to  change.  The  pragmatist  will  concede  no  world  of  objec- 
tive existence  that  is  mediated  in  a  context  of  thought,  and  that 
forms  a  dualism  with  the  subjective  which  is  mediated  in  the  same 
context.  Thought  for  him  never  means  a  finished  experience; 
it  comes  to  no  end  after  is  own  kind,  but  only  a  practical  end. 
That  is  to  say,  thought  is  always  instrumental  and  never  acts  for 
itself.  He  denies  that  it  ever  exercises  itself  within  a  sphere  of 
established  and  universalized  meaning,  by  making  new  arrange- 
ments in  co-ordination,  subordination,  etc.,  as  it  is  said  to  do  in 
higher  mathematics  and  in  logic.  He  denies  that  by  the  use  of 
the  syllogism  we  gain  insight  into  experience  yet  unknown,  by 
taking  stock  of  what  we  have,  and  by  weighing  its  significance. 
The  pragmatist  will  not  permit  thought  to  be  its  own  guarantee. 
"Truth"  must  apply  to  "good"  for  its  credentials ;  the  only  worth 
is  practical  worth. 

Further,  if  all  thought  is  only  inquiry,  instrumental  to  an  end 
it  never  reaches  as  thought,  then,  it  is  but  assumption.  It  has 
not  yet  come  to  maturity  in  the  logical  mode,  where,  as  judgment, 
it  reduces,  by  a  redistribution  of  all  earlier  meanings,  a  world  of 
experience  that  is  undifferentiated  and  uncertain,  to  a  world  that 
is  systematized  and  held  under  definite  controls.  It  is  not  thought 
that  by  an  intent  of  belief  has  referred  its  objects  to  existence- 
spheres  in  which  objects  once  universalized  and  classified  are  held 
secure  against  impulse  and  desire,  and  in  which  change  is  allowed 
only  when  new  facts  arise  that  demand  a  resetting  of  old  con- 
cepts— a  readjustment  of  extension  and  intension — in  order 
to  incorporate  them.  *  The  pragmatist,  in  his  attempt  to  escape 
the  dualism  of  judgment  and  its  object,  stops  thought  before  it 
gets  to  judgment,  and  disperses  it  in  the  feeling  of  practical  satis- 
faction that  comes  with  a  redintegration  of  experience. 

1  Baldwin:  Genetic  Logic;  vol.  II,  p.  194.  Hibben :  The  Philosophical 
Aspects  of  Evolution;  Philosophical  Review;  March,  1910. 


67 

That  the  pragmatic  theory  thus  dwarfs  thought  in  its  growth 
is  evident  from  the  illustration  which  such  theory  holds  to  be 
typical  of  all  thought,  and  which  is  intended  to  show  how  judg- 
ment is  instrumental  to  life — the  illustration,  namely,  of  the 
man  lost  in  the  woods  and  trying  to  find  his  way  home.  The 
problem  is  to  determine  the  nature  of  the  cognitive  processes 
that  get  the  man  home,  and  to  determine  also  how  these  processes 
terminate,  i.  e.,  what  makes  them  true.  The  pragmatist's  solu- 
tion is  as  follows :  Thought,  if  it  is  to  mean  more  than  "facts 
qua  presentation  or  existences,"  must  look  forward — never  back- 
ward. For  the  lost  man,  thought  has  but  one  reference — the 
forward  reference ;  it  is  a  "plan,"  a  working  hypothesis.  Thus  far 
the  solution  is  quite  acceptable,  for  until  the  man  finds  his  way  out 
of  the  woods,  thought  is  certainly  schematic — that  is  to  say,  it  is 
an  assumption.  But  what  of  the  solution  given  the  second  phase 
of  the  problem — the  truth  of  the  plan?  How  do  the  facts  that  are 
now  "doubtful  qua  meaning"  later  secure  position  and  relation- 
ship in  experience  ?  In  answering  this  question,  pragmatism  goes 
awry;  for  it  holds  that  it  is  the  practical  reorganization  of  dis- 
rupted experience  that  gives  truth  to  thought,  and  not  that  it  is 
the  truth  of  thought  (plan)  that  makes  such  reorganization  pos- 
sible. When  the  man  finds  his  way  home,  the  ideas  that  meant — 
that  mediated — something,  have  found  that  something,  declares 
the  pragmatist,  in  a  mended  and  enriched  whole  of  experience. 
But  thought  cannot  live  to  enjoy  its  own  fruits,  for  the  redin- 
tegrated experience  is  an  immediacy — a  whole  of  experience  that 
knows  no  dualism ;  "thought  must  lose  its  life  to  find  it."  *  Just 
as  thought  would  pass  over  into  the  logical  mode  and  come  to  full 
realization  in  an  object  that  is  no  longer  schematic,  but  universal, 
the  pragmatist  springs  a  trap,  and  thought  drops  into  an  im- 
mediacy of  feeling.  Of  such  judgment,  it  must  be  said  that  it 
can  never  have  more  than  a  tentative  meaning,  and  that  belief 
remains  always  in  suspense.  In  such  judgments  the  individual 
would  never  reach  the  point  where  personal  satisfaction  goes 
out  upon  an  object  as  having  found  admission  into  objective  ex- 
perience as  a  real,  existing  fact — a  fact  that  has  within  its  very 
make-up  the  categories  of  identity  and  non-contradiction. 

That  pragmatism  stops  short  of  judgment,  and  also,  of  belief,  is 
given  further  emphasis  by  making  a  turn  upon  the  above  illustra- 

1  Moore:    Psychological  Bulletin;    vol.  — ,  p.  415. 


68 

tion.  Let  us  suppose  that  the  person  lost  in  the  woods  is  a 
child,  and  not  a  man,  and  that  it  is  too  cloudy  to  see  the  sun. 
After  repeated  failure  to  get  his  bearings,  he  happens  to  notice 
that  the  trees  have  moss  on  one  side,  and  tentatively  concludes 
that  this  side  of  the  trees  is  opposite  the  sun.  He  proceeds  upon 
this  assumption  and  reaches  home.  It  certainly  cannot  be  said 
that  his  reaching  home  made  it  true  that  moss  grows  on  the  north 
side  of  trees,  but  on  the  other  hand,  it  certainly  can  be  said  that 
the  schematic  judgment,  "Moss  grows  on  the  north  side  of  trees/' 
though  held  only  as  an  assumption — a  tentative  belief — was  even 
then  true  in  the  sense  that  it  was  destined  not  to  contradict,  but  to 
agree  with,  and  at  the  same  time,  extend  earlier  objectified, 
established  experience  or  reality,  by  being  classifiable  as  univer- 
salized meaning,  and  referable  by  belief-intent  to  an  existence- 
sphere. 

A  further  argument  showing  that  thought,  which  is  instru- 
mental, has  not  reached  its  culmination,  is  furnished  by  science. 
It  is  a  far-fetched  conclusion  that  holds  the  problems  in  the 
laboratory  to  be  set  for  science  wholly  by  practical  exigency. 
Such  a  conclusion  is  too  much  like  saying  that  the  mind  cannot 
think  until  it  has  first  set  for  itself  practical  alternatives.  Evi- 
dently there  is  in  science  a  theoretical  interest.  The  end  and 
aim  of  science — unless  it  is  an  experimental  station — is  the  object 
itself — the  building  up  of  an  objective  sphere  of  truth. 

CONCLUSION. 

The  aim  of  this  essay,  as  indicated  in  the  introduction,  has  been 
to  investigate  the  phenomena  of  belief  and  judgment,  with  the 
intention  of  finding  whether  the  relation  between  these  two 
series  of  psychic  facts  is  so  intimate  as  really  to  reduce  them  to  a 
single  series.  Should  judgment  be  found  thus  coinciding  with 
belief  (in  its  most  generally  accepted  sense,  as  meaning  objective 
reference  to  reality  and  subjective  reference  to  person),  it  would 
establish  the  view  that  judgment  operates  in  and  for  experience, 
and  not  beyond  experience  as  a  play  of  empty  and  irresponsible 
forms. 

Whether  this  investigation  has  contributed  to  such  a  view  is  not 
for  me  to  decide,  but  I  may  state  my  case  as  it  stands.  Briefly  put. 


6g 

the  evidence  for  agreement  between  judgment  and  belief  is  as 
follows:  (a)  The  increasing  investigation  of  the  "existential  the- 
ory" directly  indicates  that  judgment,  like  belief,  refers  to  objec- 
tive reality,  (b)  Pragmatism  and  certain  worth-theories  show 
that  both  judgment  and  belief  have  the  inner  control  of  an 
appraising  and  evaluating  self,  (c)  Such  a  belief-view  of  judg- 
ment gives  significance  to  the  negative,  (d)  Pragmatism  in  limit- 
ing judgment  to  the  instrumental  and  schematic,  to  a  mere  inquiry, 
unavoidably  limits  belief  to  assumption. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

The  writer  of  this  dissertation,  Thomas  Albert  Lewis,  was 
born  March  17,  1878,  in  Livingston  County,  in  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri. He  received  his  preliminary  education  in  the  public  schools 
of  his  native  county  and  in  a  private  normal  school.  After  a 
year's  teaching  in  district  schools,  he  matriculated  at  William 
Jewell  College,  Liberty,  Missouri,  in  1899,  where  he  graduated 
with  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  in  1905. 

At  the  conclusion  of  his  college  course  the  author  resumed 
teaching  as  principal  of  the  public  school  at  Polo,  Missouri.  He 
resigned  this  position  at  the  close  of  the  first  year  in  order  to 
take  up  work  in  the  Johns  Hopkins  University  as  a  graduate 
student.  He  chose  Philosophy  as  his  principal,  and  Experimental 
Psychology  and  Biology  as  his  subordinate,  subjects.  He  held  the 
Fellowship  in  Philosophy  and  Psychology  during  the  year  1909-10, 
and  was  admitted  to  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy  June 
14,  1910. 

The  writer  has  attended  the  lectures  of  Professors  Baldwin, 
Stratton,  Griffin,  Buchner  and  Andrews,  and  Doctors  Dunlap  and 
Furry,  to  all  of  whom  he  is  deeply  indebted  for  the  inspiration 
of  their  teaching  and  for  their  helpful  interest.  He  would 
express  an  especial  indebtedness  to  Professor  Buchner  and  Dr. 
Furry  for  the  encouragement  and  sympathetic  criticism  they  have 
given  him  in  the  writing  of  this  dissertation. 


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